


Family Vacation

by PotionMastersBitch



Category: NCIS
Genre: Father-Son Relationship, Non-Sexual Age Play, Papa Bear Jethro Gibbs, Parental Jethro Gibbs, Team Bonding, Tony DiNozzo & Jethro Gibbs Father-Son Relationship, Vacation, light ageplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-08
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2020-04-23 02:26:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 40,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19141708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PotionMastersBitch/pseuds/PotionMastersBitch
Summary: Vance forces the entire team, and co, on a team-bonding vacation lasting a week in the hopes that it will eliminate some of the tension building up between everyone.  But will everyone survive to the end of the week?





	1. Chapter 1

            Struggling valiantly to contain his temper and abject frustration as he worked to get bedtime going for his gaggle of hyperactive, and exceedingly noisy, team members, Gibbs took several deep breaths and counted to fifty in the hopes of subduing the homicidal anger currently coursing throughout his veins. Because even though Vance, in a fit of both madness and folly, had ‘graciously’ allotted them all a whole week-long vacation on the ridiculous grounds that it would help bond them all into a more solidified unit, with respect for each other being the motivator rather than fear of Gibbs’s wrath, the fact still remained that said business-trip wouldn’t last very long if a series of noise complaints flooded into the front desk within a mere two hours of them arriving. A more than ignoble feat that seemed more than likely to happen at any moment given the unrestrained racket currently emanating from the boys’ room adjoining his and Ducky’s to the left. For if one of the ‘gentlemen’ in question was not currently playing a video game with the volume cranked up loud enough to shake their adjoining wall, one of the girls keeping them company was likewise accompanying such ear-splitting sounds with a series of swears and curses obscene enough to make even _him_ blush -  which, given that he was a Marine, was really saying something.

            “ _Now_ will you let me go and yell at them?” Gibbs demanded, giving his best friend a withering look as the wall closest to his bed rattled once more.

            Exasperating Gibbs to no end as he began to silently debate the matter within his own head, as the accompanying frown on his friend’s aging face _always_ precipitated a lecture on the merits of leniency and understanding, something he was not at all keen on hearing after having already sampled a good three hundred or so of said sermons in the last four weeks alone, Ducky pursed his lips and turned to face him with an expression very similar to that of which an exhausted kindergarten teacher must wear daily. And, never one to enjoy being chastised, in any manner, whether nonverbal or no, Gibbs frowned himself and rolled his eyes up to the ceiling.

            “Honestly, Jethro.” Ducky mildly rebuked, gingerly setting aside his thick periodical on Ancient Roman Governances to better view his disinterested audience. “Must you be so eager to put an end to their good-natured fun?”

            Not at all enjoying the thinly-veiled accusation that he outright _enjoyed_ being permanent and uncompromising killjoy of the team, as almost nothing could be further from the truth, especially not now that he properly medicated and in therapy on his own volition, Gibbs felt his scowl deepen even as he turned back to watching a rerun of the Lone Ranger to distract himself from the strong urge to snap at Ducky – as anger management had been teaching him to do. Because as patient and understanding as Ducky truly was, a person could only take so much verbal abuse they decided they had experienced enough of such a relationship. And apart from his father-son relationship with Tony, his decades-long friendship with Ducky was one of the very few relationships he wouldn’t allow his lack of mental-health to destroy or sour.

            “You won’t feel so charitable towards them when we get booted out at midnight.” Gibbs defended sourly.

            Setting aside his oversized periodical once more to glance his way with a slightly peevish expression on his face, the likes of which had his blood boiling all over again, Ducky pursed his thin lips and sighed before beginning to lecture Gibbs afresh with that ‘professor’ voice he was so very fond of using.

            “Come now,” Ducky tried to reason “We have very little reason to suspect that the young ones are doing anything that the hotel would deem a removable offense, Jet – “

            _THUNK!_

            Having already assumed that some sort of grievous injury was bound to occur sooner or later, either to property or person, Gibbs was not at all surprised as the loud jarring sound stemming forth from the adjoining room was accompanied by a mannish cry of pain and a series of muffled curses.                 

            “Still think they’re not getting up to any trouble in there?” Gibbs tersely questioned, already climbing out of his bed in the pursuit of investigation.

            Still needing a moment to recover from the alarmingly loud sound that had just assaulted both sets of their ears, Ducky sat perfectly still for several seconds before moving to retrieve his periodical that he had allowed to drop to the floor in the aftermath of his surprise.            

            “Well,” The flustered Medical Examiner prevaricated, hurrying to join him at the door leading to the boy’s room, “I’m sure my Jimmy is behaving perfectly well.”

            Finding the insinuation that _his_ kid was any less behaved than the one that belonged to Ducky more than just a little insulting, no matter how true or accurate such an accusation was, Gibbs clamped down hard on his tongue to keep from picking a fight with the skinny man and only narrowly resisted the urge to roll his eyes as said man rapped sharply on the door in front of them three times. For as much as Gibbs always liked to allow his agents _some_ degree of privacy, Kate _especially_ so, he couldn’t help but feel as if now was not the time for such an indulgence, as such an age-old request for entrance would only grant the young delinquents ample time to conceal whatever it was they were up to. And, given that such a more unpalatable situation in his eyes, considering the fact that it meant he wouldn’t be able to determine and subsequently put a stop to whatever behavior had been causing such a racket, Gibbs quickly rectified the situation by immediately throwing the door open as quickly as possible.

            To say that the sights which immediately greeted his eyes as a result would have been a most egregious understatement. For not only was there a pink Nintendo joystick currently lying at his child’s feet, cracked and very likely broken, so too was said man clutching at his drastically bleeding nose with one of the hotel’s pristinely white, and expensive, towels. And, if that was not currently enough to get him all riled up, which it most certainly _was_ , Kate, arguably _the_ most mature agent apart from the ever-responsible Tim, was all but acting the part of a fool as she apoplectically screeched as loudly as possible at the television screen with a disgusting crudeness that had Gibbs in a horrified awe even as Ducky clutched at his heart and gasped.

            “You stupid troglodytes!” Kate raged, spittle flying from her lips as she screamed at the television. “I’ll kick you so fucking hard in your shriveled pox-filled dicks that you’ll all need super-absorbent tampons to deal with the blood-flow coming out of your new vaginas!”   

            “Good Lord, Caitlyn Elizabeth.” Ducky finally admonished, beyond flustered and still clutching at his chest. “Shame on you!”

             Only then seeming to realize that they now had an audience of their very angry employers to contend with, one of which was seldom wrathful and now completely irritable and frightening as a result, the assorted children all acted in accordance to their characters and personalities. Which meant that Kate almost immediately dropped down onto the carpet in a poorly feigned attempt to appear completely innocent in all matters even as Tim likewise did the same by hurriedly grabbing a gaming-strategy manual and acting as though he had already been studying the pages for hours when the ‘adults’ had arrived. And, as for Abby, she reacted exactly the way Gibbs had expected her to – that being with absolutely zero concern for anything other than toenails she was currently painting a very dark purple. Even though the fact that her self-proclaimed very best friend in the world was currently bleeding very profusely into his lap and struggling to hide, and contain, the crimson flow by keeping his head stubbornly turned away from Gibbs and Ducky. And as for Jimmy, well, _his_ primary concern had seemed to be in concealing the evidence of the vast amount of sugary candy he had evidently consumed by pushing the wrappers of such behind the curtains.

            “Would anyone like to tell me what the fuck is going on in here?!” Gibbs growled, harshly eyeing Kate as the most likely suspect.

            Still as pink and mottled as an unripe mango, Kate squirmed uncomfortably where she stood and refused to meet his gaze, staring instead at the pristine white carpet currently cushioning her bared feet.  

            “SPEAK!” Gibbs barked, startling an easily-flustered Jimmy right off the pillow he was using as a seat.

            Feeling himself come dangerously near to losing his mind as a terrified, yet obstinate, silence flooded into the formerly loud room, Gibbs dug his fingernails into his palm to stave off the urge to yell and very nearly succeeded in such a noble endeavor before a prepubescent voice squawked loudly forth from the television with an irritating inflection that rattled him to no real end.

            “ _Oooooh_.” The nasally voice crooned. “Someone’s in trouble!”  

            “Shut up, you fat little cunts!” Kate thundered, looking fully prepared to kick the television right off its stand.

            Seeming to make the very same assumption for himself, as he had always been a good judge of character, Tony quickly intervened and diffused the situation by muting the television the very minute he got his hands on the television remote lying abandoned on the bed hosting Abby.

            “Who threw the joystick at Tony’s eye?” Gibbs growled, feeling as if he already knew the answer.

            Not even one bit surprised as his question wound up precipitating the turning of four heads towards a now very red-in-the-face Kate, Gibbs sighed inwardly to himself and quirked a brow at the clearly guilty culprit by way of extracting an answer without having to go to too much effort on his part.

            “Those fat, pimple-faced, bastards keep camping on us!” Kate whined, finally giving him an answer.

            “So, let me get this straight.” Gibbs sighed, his blood still boiling. “All this fucking noise and chaos has been over a goddamn video game!?”

            Seeming to have appointed herself the spokesperson of the group, albeit more than just a little reluctantly, Kate grimaced awkwardly and foolishly opted for a little bit of deflection in the vain hopes that such a ploy would actually work and grant them all, especially her, a little bit of clemency.

            “Not _all_ of it.” Kate weakly defended. “Abby was also jumping between the two beds before she missed and hit the wall.”

            Instantly perking up at the sound of her name, Abby paused in the painting of her toenails long enough to glare petulantly at Kate before resuming her art.  

            “Tattletale.” The black-haired girl pouted, sticking out her pierced tongue at Kate.

            Knowing better than to retaliate against the bubbly goth, at least whilst Gibbs was currently in the room and within headslapping distance, Kate simply scowled in response to Abby’s childish accusations before turning back to face him.

            “I swear I wasn’t aiming for Tony’s face with the controller.” The disgruntled brunette insisted, pleading her case in any way possible. “His face was just collateral damage.”       

            “Gee, thanks, Katie.” Tony grumbled, still holding the now-red towel to his dripping nose. “I’ll remember that when your birthday comes around.”

            Quickly stepping in to intervene before a full-fledged squabble could break out in response to Tony using the bastardized version of Kate’s name that she hated so much, as such an argument could only result in yet another noise complaint being leveled against them all, Gibbs stepped between the two of them before returning his glower unto the most guilty of the chronically-arguing duo.

            “I don’t care _what_ you were aiming for.” Gibbs hissed. “You still hit his goddamn nose.”

            “But – “

            “No arguments.” Gibbs interrupted, preemptively cutting Kate short before moving unto Tim. “Now pack up your Nintendo. Play time is over and it’s time for bed.”

            Resisting every urge in his body not to roll his eyes as a collective groan of dismay flooded into the oversized room in response to the promise of an impending bedtime, something his agents _clearly_ needed as much as they loathed the thought, Gibbs simply frowned deeper and held up one finger for the space of a second before moving to erect a second one. The act of which, thankfully, moved his team’s collective asses into gear and compelled them to start collecting up their discarded joysticks – albeit much more slowly and reluctantly than they were wont to when in a more work-like setting. 

            “It’s not a Nintendo. It’s a _PlayStation_.” Tony moodily corrected, struggling to be of much help with the collection of controllers and games with one had still preoccupied with stemming the blood flowing from his nose.           

            “I don’t care _what_ the fuck they’re called, it’s time for bed.” Gibbs reiterated, tapping his watch to show his agents it was time to hurry up.

            “But it’s only midnight.” Tim quipped, more out of a misplaced desire to be helpful rather than the urge to be sassy. “And we don’t have to be to work tomorrow.”

            Having already established, at least to himself, that his decision behind making his agents go to bed before they chose to on their own volition had more to do with the fact that they were clearly exhausted and crabby as a result, rather than the mere power-play they clearly thought it was, Gibbs raised a warning brow at McGee and tapped his watch once more.

            “Come on, Gibbs.” Tony pleaded, having already completely abandoned his attempts at assisting with the cleanup. “One more hour.”

            Having already felt himself faltering in his resolve the very moment Tony turned his expressive green eyes unto him, rather unfairly if you asked him, Gibbs completely lost just as soon as Abby decided to actively contribute to the coaxing with puppy-dog eyes of her own.

            “Yeah, Gibbs, my nails are still wet!” Abby cajoled, wriggling her toes in his direction.

            “Fine, one more hour.” Gibbs sighed. “But that’s _it_.”             

             Allowing himself a good old-fashioned eye-roll as a chorus of resounding thanks flooded into the room from three very excited agents and Jimmy, and only one slightly-engaged forensics specialist, Gibbs shook his head and gingerly extracted himself from the hug Tony had delivered unto his legs.

            “Will you help us?” Tony pleaded, deftly reattaching himself. “We’re getting our asses handed to us by some pimple-faced eight-graders.”

            Despite wanting to do nothing more than crawl into bed and fall asleep for the next six hours, or seven given that he was on vacation, Gibbs was much too proud to lay claim to the proverbial old-age card – especially so in front of his team. And, as such, if that meant he had to spend the fifteen minutes helping his child and co. defeat a gaggle of prepubescent children in a video game marketed towards audiences far younger than himself, well, that was just what he was going to do.

            “Tony,” Tim whispered, none too quietly or subtle, “I don’t think Gibbs knows _how_ to play.”      

            Delivering his first headslap of the evening to the back of McGee’s unsuspecting head, hard enough to make said man drop his black joystick into his bowl of obscenely-buttered popcorn, Gibbs snatched the pink joystick out of his son’s slightly-bloody lap and seated himself on the edge of the bed not containing a decidedly hyperactive Abby.

            “Learn to keep your mouth shut, McGee.” Gibbs growled, already adjusting the joystick controls to his liking. “Who the hell do you think kept fragging you when Tony was out with the mumps in February?”

            Looking as if Gibbs had just announced to the whole entire room he was quitting the team in order to go and offer his services to the FBI, Tim’s jaw dropped unseemingly even as his hazel eyes went as wide as dinner plates.

            “That was _you_?!” Tim gasped.  

            “I had to do something to occupying my mind while he slept.” Gibbs shrugged, trying not show just how excited he was to be playing another game on the Nintendo. “I can only read the same newspaper so many damn times.”

            “ _Seriously_?!” Kate raged, her blue eyes flashing dangerously. “ _You’re SharpshootingBastard?!”_

            Still woefully unable to keep from feeling a great amount of shame at possessing such a markedly uninspired name, yet still somewhat grateful that it hadn’t been _Abby_ of all people put in charge of choosing his Nintendo username, Gibbs physically cringed and couldn’t help but level a glare, albeit a slight one, at the guilty party sitting directly below him.

            “Only because I let Tony pick it out when he was far too sick and miserable to argue with.”

            Although, in all honesty, is Gibbs was to be put on the spot, with a gun pressed against his head, and _forced_ to chose a better than his half-delirious kid had decided upon, he would, admittedly, be very hard pressed to do so. Not only because he lacked a certain creativity when it came to picking out names, which he most certainly did, then for no other reason than he was very loathe to give up something his child had given him – no matter _if_ such a thing was an admittedly silly name.

            “You made me put a controller through my window.” Kate accused, narrowing her eyes at him in an accusatory fashion. “The neighbors called the cops on me.”

            “Calm down, Kate.” Tim admonished. “It’s _just_ a game, you know.”

            Almost immediately recoiling in horror as Kate turned her admittedly terrifying glare unto his person, an expression filled with all the vehemence of a terrorist, Tim held up his hands in a gesture of surrender and quickly, and prudently, scooted himself out of punching distance.  

            “If this turns into another Mario Kart incident again, I’m leaving.” Abby warned, perfectly safe atop her perch of a bed.

            “And just what the hell is a Mario Kart incident?” Gibbs inquired, leveling an interrogative look at a clearly guilty Kate.

            Understandably still more than just a little sore with his fellow agent for just such an incident, whatever such a thing might have entailed, Tim frowned reprovingly at Kate before happily spilling the proverbial beans to a very-interested Gibbs.

            “Remember last month, when I came to work with a black eye?” Tim began, still frowning heavily at Kate. “Well, I didn’t really get it from being mugged. What _actually_ happened was that Kate punched me in the face for using a shell to knock her off Rainbow Road.”  

            “He was _gloating_!” Kate growled, looking damn near murderous.    

            “Only because somebody finally managed to beat you at your own game.” Tony swiftly defended, his nose finally no longer dripping blood.

            Unable to keep from feeling more than just a little hurt that there was evidently some sort of long-standing video game night amongst the team that he hadn’t been made privy to, either due to his age or his temperament, Gibbs clamped down hard on his tongue to keep from allowing the hurt to show on his face and instead tried to distract himself from such an ache by listening to the conversation at hand instead.

            “He _cheated_!” Kate further protested, clearly hoping to secure Gibbs unto her side of the argument.

             “It was _not_ my fault that you sneezed!” Tim argued, looking mortally offended at the very suggestion he would ever do something so underhanded.

            Having always been one to hold great stock in letting a couple of bickering individuals sort matters out for themselves, so long as such a squabble didn’t wind up with either party receiving any grievous injuries or major bodily harm as a result of such, Gibbs refrained from immediately intervening and allowed the argument to play out on the grounds that it would be good, and healthy, for both Kate and Tim to come to some sort of consensus on their own.

            “Sabotage!” Kate hissed, bristling up like a startled cat. “It was _sabotage_. You and Tony were working in cahoots with each other!”  

            “You really _are_ a sore loser, Kate.” Abby sniffed, still a perfectly safe distance away from the woman she was currently antagonizing. “How was it that you never got banned from cheerleading?”  

            “Because I never allowed my team to lose.” Kate calmly informed, a deadly sincerity in her voice. “We were four-time state champs for a reason!”

            Seeming to have witnessed all he cared to of Kate’s surprising and less-than-admirable side, as apart from Jimmy she was inarguably his second-favorite member of the team, Ducky cleared his throat just once and effectively turned the focus unto himself before beginning to go about the process of his taking his leave of the room.

            “Well, Jethro, if you have the situation under control, I do believe I’ll take my leave.” He announced. “I’ll just be confiscating James’s candy before I go.”

             Despite looking as if he wanted to do nothing more than deny having any such sweets on his person, much less having already consumed a great quantity of such, Jimmy knew all too well that a sharp lecture and an equally sharp smack to his rear awaited him if he should be so brazen as to lie straight to his father-figure’s face. And as such, it was with no amount of hesitation, but with great reluctance showing on his face, that the skinny diabetic man removed from behind the curtain his small horde of sugary sweets and pushed them into Ducky’s awaiting hands.

            “ _All_ of them James Andrew.” Ducky amended, making it clear via his facial expressions that such attitude was not at all appreciated.

            Clever enough to realize that it would be of no good to make a battle out of such a request, as Ducky was forever unflappable when it came to the proper managing of his diabetes, Jimmy only scowled angrily before reluctantly collecting the bags of marshmallows he had hidden beneath the bed and thrusting them into his father’s hands.   

            “Curb the attitude.” Ducky patiently forewarned. “And surrender the bag of marshmallows Anthony is hiding for you, as well.”          

            Despite having been so recently warned that his attitude was not at all appreciated, in any sense of the word, _or_ likely to be accepted without any consequences being delivered to his person, Jimmy actually glowered brazenly at his father as his best friend bonelessly surrendered his favorite snack in the world for confiscation.

            “Right then.” Ducky murmured, sparing a brief moment to box his cheeky child directly in the ear. “I bid you all a goodnight.”

            Adding his own reciprocal answers to that of his team, a bit too loudly to make up for the fact that Jimmy was far too sullen as he rubbed at his assaulted ear to participate, Gibbs repositioned himself atop the mattress for better playing ability and waited patiently until his best friend had taken his leave of the room before giving a squirrely Tim a very pointed look.

            “There’s no need to hide those marshmallows under your shirt anymore.” He patiently advised. “Let Jimmy have them.”

            Hazel eyes going wide in a manner that seemed to suggest he believed Gibbs had just lost his mind for making such a suggestion, as it was not often that his boss actively went against anything his best friend decided upon in regards to his child, Tim hesitantly removed the unopened bag from beneath his shirt and held tight to the confectionary item.

            “Are you _sure_?” He fussed.  

            Taking the decision directly out of his hands by forcefully yanking the candy right out of his unexpecting hands, Jimmy frowned heavily at the morally-upstanding man before yanking the package open with his teeth and shoving a fistful of the white squares into his mouth.

            “I’m _already_ going to get an earful in the morning about the candy.” Jimmy spoke up, speaking with a mouth full of the sticky and white treat. “I might as well go all the way.”  

            “But,” Gibbs frowned, giving Jimmy a very pointed look, “If Ducky finds out – “

            “You didn’t know anything about anything.” Jimmy finished, knowing the drill perfectly by that point in time.

            “Right then.” Gibbs grunted, satisfied that his own ass was sufficiently covered. “Now let’s beat these little assholes so we can get to bed.”  

             “Do you still want to use my controller?” Tony questioned. “Because I brought yours, too, if you want?”

            Not needing to be told that such a question stemmed forth from his child’s understandably selfish desire to reclaim control of his own joystick for the purposes of defeating the assholes terrorizing him, as he was no doubt very-familiar with such a tool by now, Gibbs happily surrendered the pink object into his boy’s awaiting hands before eagerly accepting his own well-used joystick the color of leaves from Jimmy.  

            Far more touched than he would ever be able to accurately articulate that his child had been fully intending to include him in the gameplaying shenanigans they had all planned for that week, without even bothering to ascertain if the rest of his fellow gamers would be amendable to such a plan, Gibbs felt his throat tighten without warning and immediately sought out to distract himself from such powerful emotions by focusing on the television screen and the game at hand.

           

_SharpshootingBastard joined the game_ read the oversized screen as Gibbs effortlessly manipulated his joystick to access the game.

 _IwillShootYourEyeoutKid joined the game_ read the screen as an immensely-exited Tony hurried to follow his father’s lead.

 _KatetheGreatandUndefeated joined the game_ read the screen as a frighteningly-vengeful Kate hastened to start the process of avenging her honor.

            _AutopsyGremlin joined the game_ read the screen, once Jimmy had finally managed to swallow down the fierce wad of marshmallows he had crammed into his mouth.

 _McGangster69 joined the game_ read the screen, once Tim had finished taking a quick swig, or four, of his diet root beer.

            “My God, McGee.” Gibbs groaned, rolling his eyes. “You really need to change your username.”             

Having the decency to at least blush in response to the very fair accusation that his username was, at best, juvenile and obnoxious, Tim squirmed uncomfortably from his perch on the floor and refused to meet his eyes as he tried, and struggled, to come up with a valid excuse for such ridiculousness.

            “If I made a new one, I’d lose all my achievements.” He frowned. “And I have way too many to just give up.”

            Feeling somewhat understanding of the fact said gaming-enthusiast was so reluctant to surrender any number of his hundreds of achievements, as Gibbs himself was absurdly proud of the half-dozen awards he had received himself within the first few hours of him learning how to use the Nintendo, he charitably opted to drop the matter in favor of keeping his agent from growing _too_ uncomfortable while under the heatless scrutiny. Because while he never wanted to go completely soft on his agents, _ever_ , his four months of therapy had helped him to realize that he really didn’t want to be a complete hard-ass either.

“NERD.” Abby snorted, by that point in time having turned from her toe-painting to perusing a _Cosmo_ magazine.

            Noticing that Kate was about to retaliate against the goth in defense of the meek man, either out of good-natured altruism or a selfish desire to get back at the girl who had spent the whole car ride over to the hotel annoying the hell out of her, Gibbs quickly intervened before yet another squabble could erupt and unmuted the television – hoping that the promise of a good game would serve to distract Kate from her apparently vengeful nature long enough to spare Abby her wrath.

            “Enough.” He warned the two young women.

            _IcanDoitBetterAndFater:_ “ _Ohhhhhhh_. Daddy is getting angry, you’d better – “

Not even needing to hear the rest of the little asshole’s sentence to know that it was heading somewhere dangerously sexual, probably pertaining to something spank-related, Gibbs wasted no time at all in locating the little shithead hiding behind a column and blowing his head right off his shoulders.

  _IwillShootYourEyeoutKid:_ “Yeah, I forgot to mention that my ‘ _daddy’_ was a Marine sniper.”

  _NuggetBiscuitDipitallInMashedPotatoes:_ “Doubt.”

 _YourMomsHairyAsshole69:_ “I bet he’s, like, an insurance salesman.”

Understanding that the little twats he was currently tasked with hunting down were no older than fifteen, _at best_ , Gibbs refrained from giving them one of his infamous ass-chewings and instead concentrated all his efforts in hunting those remaining down. That was not to say, however, that Kate was equally as able to restrain herself.

 _KatetheGreatandUndefeated:_ “Yeah, well, your mom is such a whore that the NFL gave her an award for the greatest wide-receiver.”

 _PringlesPringlesPringles:_ “Yeah, well, your mom is such a slut I’m probably your brother.”

 Never one to enjoy any insinuations that his agents were less than exemplary whereas their morality was concerned, or to tolerate his sole female agent being disparaged in so sexist a fashion, Gibbs wasted no time at all finding the two antagonizing culprits pigeon-holed up on some rafter and blowing both their heads off with just one bullet.

 _FrankfurterFurterFrank:_ “Dude, what the fuck!?”

 _Pussylicker69:_ “They hacked the fucking game!”

 _FrankfurterFurterFrank:_ “ _No way_ an eighty-year-old is that good!”

Shooting blindly in all directions in an angry attempt to strike the shit-talkers via sheer luck alone, Tony glowered at the screen from where he sat and looked ready to lob his joystick through the television.

 _IwillShootYourEyeoutKid:_ “My dad isn’t eighty!”

 _Pussylicker69:_ “He must be. You’re like sixty, dude.”

 _KatetheGreatandUndefeated:_ “Listen here, you vitamin-D deficient rodeo clown – “

            _YourmomsHairyAsshole69:_ “Yeah, what Katie?”

Not so much as blinking as an eye, despite having been just so recently addressed by the bastardized version of her name that she loathed like nothing else, Kate simple directed her machine gun towards a window and shot it before smirking brightly as the sounds of a bullet hitting a body flooded into the room.

 _KatetheGreatandUndefeated:_ “ _This_.”

 _NuggetBiscuitDipitallInMashedPotatoes:_ “FUCK!!”

 _McGangster69:_ “Only four more to go.”

 Not at all concerned by such a number given that the first few assholes had been taken out so ridiculously easily, Gibbs allowed himself to relax his usually rigid posture and went off to investigate a promising bush that might easily hide an enemy of two.

 _TheFloppiestDickintheWorld:_ “Good luck, you ancient assholes.”

 _KatetheGreatandUndefeated:_ “Your mother should have swallowed you when she had the chance!”

 _YourMomsHairyAsshole69:_ “I’ve got something you can swallow, Babe.”

Understandably outraged on behalf of their fellow agent and friend, Tony and Tim immediately rushed into a nearby thicket of trees and made short work of decapitating one of their enemies with their swords.

 _RancidFart:_ “C’mon guys, I can only get _so_ horny.”

 _SharpshootingBastard:_ “Does your mother know that you speak to people this way?!”  

 _YourMomsHairyAsshole69:_ “Does your boyfriend know what a fogie you are?”

This time claiming the honor of shooting someone’s head off their shoulder for himself, with astounding accuracy, Tim beamed widely and didn’t so much as hesitate to kick the severed head off into the nearby woods.

 _IwillShootYourEyeOutKid:_ “How the hell do you even know what a fogie is?”

 _RancidFarts:_ Because I’m a genius taking college classes at thirteen, you old bastard.”

 _KatetheGreatandUndefeated:_ “That’s rich coming from the poster child of fetal alcohol syndrome.”

 _RancidFarts:_ “The only thing I suffer from is big-dick disease. You want a pic, Babe?”

Unable to keep from thinking that he would wash Tony’s mouth out with soap if he ever heard him talking that way, for _any_ reason, Gibbs shuddered inwardly and wondered how badly it would violate the spirit of the game if he went out of the way to discover a method of informing the little bastard’s parents of just what sort of shit he got up to while playing his Nintendo games.

 _AutopsyGremlin:_ “If that’s the case, you have Pyronine’s disease. Which means your dick is a curved monstrosity incapable of performing adequately.” Jimmy quipped. “Which must be the reason you’re alone and as single as your mother.”

 _RancidFarts:_ “We can’t all have access to corpses, you cunt.”

 _AutopsyGremlin:_ “We don’t all _need_ access to corpses to lose our virginity.”

  And, with that smart retort alone, Jimmy aimed his gun at the sky and effectively shot down the little coward hiding in the branches of such a plant.

 _KatetheGreatandUndefeated_ : “GG, assholes.”

Hastily turning off the television before the junior-high aged kids on the other side of the screen could antagonize Kate into another screaming fit, Gibbs set the remote aside and climbed slowly to his feet.

“Alright, bed.” He announced. “Lights out in ten for _everyone_.”

And, already knowing that he would be obeyed without any significant protests taking place, Gibbs ignored their collective whining before making his way back into the bedroom he shared with Ducky and climbing beneath the covers of his own bed once the girls had finished cutting across the room to enter their own.

“Did you destroy a bunch of hooligans as hoped, Jethro?” Ducky inquired, politely setting aside his reading material.

“Yup.” Gibbs confirmed, tugging the blankets up over his face.

“Very good.” Ducky appraised. “But tell me, how much candy did you ply my child with in the interim?”

Seeing no other option to avoid a quarrel with his friend than to fake sleep, Gibbs shamelessly relaxed his body and forced a series of only semi-convincing snores from his mouth.

“You had best not come bitching to me the next time I let one of your agents hide under my autopsy table, Jethro.”  Ducky warned, sighing loudly enough for the dead to hear.


	2. Chapter 2

Despite having been informed, in no uncertain terms, that they were _all_ to be in bed once the full ten minutes allotted for bedtime cares had elapsed, Tony found that the excitement that came with being on vacation with his work-family, in a pretty swanky hotel to boot, had him all too wound up with energy for sleep to be anything other than a pipe dream in his father’s head. And, as such, it with but minimal amounts of guilt, if any, that he quietly crept out of his bed a good half-hour after Gibbs had finished bed-checks and slowly crawled across the carpet to grant the girls access into his room via the door that lead out into the hallway.

“Hurry up.” Tony whispered, all but yanking the giggling women inside the room he was to share with Tim and Jimmy for the next week. “Did you bring the booze?”

Giggling nervously as removed from beneath her silken pajama shirt a slightly-crumpled box of horrifically-cheap wine, the poor structural-integrity of such suggestive of the fact that it had been fallen atop of, Kate hastily scurried into the bedroom and left Tony alone to carefully shut the front door as quietly as humanely possible.

“The bar in this place closes at midnight.” Kate disparaged, looking mortally affronted by such an irredeemable business practice. “All I could talk the bartender into giving us was _this_.”  

“That’s, like, ten-dollar wine.” Tony groused, already feeling his taste buds beginning to rebel against the thought of being coated with such filth.

“It was either this or sneak out to the pub down the street.” Kate retorted. “And I don’t know about _you_ , but I most certainly do _not_ have the balls to sneak out of the hotel altogether after Gibbs told us to get to bed.”

While he was, without a doubt, of the same opinion as Kate when it came to the pushing of Gibbs’s button, that being that the less violently a button was pressed the more mercy they would be allotted if their crimes were discovered, Tony _also_ couldn’t keep from thinking that his fellow agent had been dipping into their mutual wine stores while awaiting for their rendezvous time to arrive. Because not only was she giggling more than was usual for her slightly-reserved personality, so too was she slightly unsteady her feet and slurring her words. And while that was just fine in his opinion, as that was what they had all met up again to do, he couldn’t help but wish she had held off until actually arriving to the room so as to limit the chances of them all being discovered breaking the rules by Gibbs.

“Did you save any of that wine for us, Kate?” Tim groggily inquired, scurrying to slip back into his flannel pajama bottoms.

Thinking, to himself of course, that such modesty precautions were hardly called for given the atmosphere of the room, as Abby had _already_ seen all there was of Tim’s massive package whilst dating and Kate had no doubt been fed all the details of such by said lady, Tony rolled his eyes at the gentlemanly gesture and fought off the urge to peek at such a large appendage by removing the boxed wine out of Kate’s slightly clumsy fingers.

“This is half-gone!” Tony grumped, shaking the box to show his fellow men that he was not exaggerating. “What the hell Kate?”

“I only had _two_ glasses!” Kate immediately protested, a mortally offended look coming to dance across her features. “Abby had the rest!”

Sparing a glance at Abby to gauge the truthfulness of such a statement, and immediately finding it to be an accurate assessment, Tony grimaced and pondered, for the first time that evening, if it really was all that wise to so blatantly go against Gibbs’s order so soon after arriving to their vacation. Because if they fucked up now and got caught so early on in the week, their odds of getting away with any further mischief went _way down_ – especially so if Gibbs got really angry and grounded them all to their room for the remaining duration of the room.

“Well, we had to do something while we waited.” Abby defended, clearly the drunker of the two. “We were getting bored.”

“And we didn’t _dare_ turn the television on.” Kate contributed, flopping down onto the mattress he was sharing with Jimmy for the evening and very nearly crushing said man’s third bag of marshmallows.

Understandably very alarmed at the thought of any such harm coming to his beloved candy stores, given that he had worked so very hard to conceal the majority of its existence from Ducky, yet not too altogether considered with the wellbeing of his fellow teammate, Jimmy frowned and immediately used one of his feet to push Kate unto the floor – creating a thud loud enough to have them all holding their breathe in anxious anticipation of an angry Gibbs blasting through their door at any moment.

“Are you _trying_ to get us caught?” Tim hissed at Jimmy, moving aside on his own bed to grant Kate a safe refuge.

“It was hard enough to smuggle in enough candy to last a week.” Jimmy retorted, looking like a fucking dragon as he gathered up his sugary horde in his hands and shoved in beneath the pillows on his half of the bed. “And I’m not having Kate’s ass jeopardize that.”

“Are you calling my ass fat?” Kate demanded, looking dangerously near to tears.

Knowing Kate well enough by that point in time to understand that no answer Jimmy gave her would be deemed good enough to assuage her hurt and anger, at least not whilst she was bordering on the edge of being drunk, Tony quickly intervened and defused to the situation before a full-fledged squabble could break out and awaken Gibbs from his uncharacteristically deep slumber.

“Let’s play a game.” He suggested, gently guiding an unsteady Abby unto Tim’s bed.

“A game?” Tim frowned.

“Like what?” Kate demanded. “Goldfish?”

Not liking the way his idea was being so quickly disparaged by half the room, especially so because none of the naysayers were offering up any solutions or alternatives to the suggestion he had made, Tony frowned and leveled both the culprits with a glare.

“Do you have any _better_ ideas?” He demanded.

“Not really.” Tim sheepishly confessed, at the same time Kate shrugged.

“We could play would-you-rather.” Jimmy helpfully suggested.

Thinking that such an idea was a very fine one, indeed, as not only would it be entertaining but _quiet and safe_ as well, Tony nodded and immediately voiced his consent to such an idea.

“I’m in.” He confirmed. “What about the rest of you?”

“As long as things don’t become too personal, sure.” Kate agreed, bringing the box of wine up to her mouth and using the spigot to release a flood of the red into her mouth before handing it off to him.

Seeing no better option for getting slightly tipsy before him, as the paper cups the hotel had supplied their bathrooms with were far too small to be useful for anything other than provided an after-brush mouth rinse, Tony followed suit and allowed himself a hearty swig of the awful boxed wine before handing it off into Tim’s possession.

“I’ll start.” Tim eagerly offered. “Would you rather be infamous in history books or forgotten after you die?”

And, rather than selfishly give the first answer directly after asking the first question, Tim poured some of the discount wine into own mouth and savored the taste, quite alarmingly, before foisting the box on Jimmy who immediately declined and passed it on to Abby.

“I’d want to be infamous.” Tony eventually decided, once the box had made its second round about the room. “It would be really cool to actually be a part of history.”

“Even if that meant you were reviled like Hitler?” Jimmy pressed, charitably passing around a family-sized bag of his Skittles to help his team wash out the taste of the substandard wine.

“Well, maybe not if it got to _that_ point.” Tony quickly amended. “But if it was, like, an Aaron Burr situation, I’d be okay with that. I mean, at least I’d get a musical out of the ordeal.”

Garishly upending a colorful stream of skittles into her mouth before washing such a sugary flood down with the ill-gained wine, Kate grimaced as she swallowed and reluctantly surrendered the wine into Abby’s hand as said girl yanked on her hair in an impatient demand for her turn.

“I can’t believe you managed to convince us that you were straight for so long.” Kate quipped, playful rather than cruel. “But, I’m with you on this one. It _would_ be really cool to have books or musicals written about you.”

“Yeah,” Tim allowed, “But if you were reviled enough that might mean you were murdered or something. Is that worth a song?”

“A tony-winning Broadway one, yes.” Tony assured. “And I’m sure Aaron Burr would agree if he was still alive.”

“I agree.” Abby opined, chipper as always. “That asshole was always bitching about not getting enough attention.”

“And he’d probably be really glad to be painted in such a sympathetic light.” Jimmy contributed. “Especially because he was such a sleazy dick in real life.”

Despite being well aware of the fact that Burr wasn’t at all as sympathetic a character as Lin Manuel Miranda would like his audiences to believe, as Ducky had spared no time at all in poking holes into one of Tony’s favorite musicals the very week it had come out, he found he still couldn’t help but defend the character with a certain vehemence – or, to be more accurate, the hot as fuck actor who played him.

“You leave Leslie Odom alone!” Tony defended, a bit more passionately than was strictly necessary.

“Chill, Tony. Nobody has anything to bad to say about the actor himself.” Jimmy patiently assured. “But, that gives me an idea for the next question. If you had to sleep with anyone of the same sex, who would it be?”

Not even having time to find humor in the shocked faces of his fellow agents (all individuals who had not yet had the honor of becoming aware of Jimmy’s vulgar side like he already had long ago) before Abby was sitting up in bed and raising protests, far too loudly for anyone’s comfort, Tony grimaced and only prayed that Gibbs stayed sound asleep.

“No fair, Tony has it far too easy for this question!”

“Vance.” Kate shamelessly admitted, thankfully distracting Abby from her whining with just such an answer.

            “ _WHAT_?!” Tim spluttered, nearly choking on his ration of wine.

            Far too intrigued about the possibilities behind Kate’s rationing of such an answer to argue that she had violated the game by ignoring the stipulation that a same-sex person was to be chosen, Tony sat up straighter and nearly choked on his muffled laughter as his fellow agent turned bright red.

            “I just feel like he’d…do a good job of it, you know. Like…he’d fuck you _raw_ , but at the same time he’d be a gentleman about it and take you out for dinner beforehand.”

“You know,” Tony began, contemplating the matter, “I feel like you’re right.”

“So, that’s who _you_ would choose, too?” Jimmy asked, brimming with curiosity.

Perhaps bolstered by the surprising strength of the cheap wine, or simply becoming infected with the contagious energy of the room, Tony found himself blurting out a correction to Jimmy’s assumption before he could stop himself.

“No. I’d pick Tim.”

“That’s strange.” Jimmy remarked. “I’d pick Tim, too.”

Far too good and kind-hearted to be anything other than modestly flattered upon hearing the news that two of his teammates would like a slice of the action he had once given to Abby on a weekly basis, before their tumultuous breakup had put an end to such shenanigans, Tim blushed a pretty shade of pink but nonetheless continued on with the conversation as if it were a perfectly normal occurrence for him to hear that his male friends harbored slight fantasies about being fucked by him.

“I’m flattered, Tony.” Tim sincerely admitted. “But I’m afraid I’m going to have to go with Orlando Bloom.”

“But only if he’s dressed as Legolas, right?” Abby snarked, becoming a bit bratty as the wine kicked in.

“Dream on.” Tim scoffed. “I’d want him full on in character as Will Turner.”   

“Okay, if we’re sticking to the whole Pirates of the Caribbean thing, I’m changing my answer to Penelope Cruz.” Kate corrected.

“I guess I’ll take Angelina Jolie.” Abby shrugged, clearly losing interest in the question.

  Knowing by that point in time that it was best to simply just ignore Abby whenever she got into one of her bratty modes, as any attention, whether negative or positive, would just encourage her to act up more, Tony pointedly turned away from her and looked to Kate to ask a question.

“Umm…” Kate ineloquently began, struggling with being put on the spot. “Would you…Would you rather punch your…dad in the face for 100,000 or let your dad punch you in the face for 100,000,000?”

“Wait,” Tony interjected, “Are we talking real dads or sperm donors? Because I’d _never_ give Senior the satisfaction of laying his hands on me. And I would also _never_ punch Gibbs.”  

Not only because he would never live to tell the tale if he did, but more so because he loved and respected him far too much to treat his so disrespectfully.

“And I’d never punch Ducky, either.” Jimmy confirmed. “But if we’re talking sperm donors, I’d flay mine alive for a corn chip.”

“But you hate corn chips.” Tim reminded the skinny man.

“Exactly.” Jimmy somberly agreed.

Apparently having borne all she cared to of just such a game, despite them having only really just started to get into it, Abby exhaled a loud breathe of air from her mouth and rose sluggishly to her feet, looking in very real danger of toppling unto the floor before grabbing a bedpost to steady herself.

“I’m going to use the bathroom.” She announced. “Try to come up with some better questions while I’m in there.”

“Take your time.” Kate suggested, more than just a little terse.

Waiting patiently for Abby to finally stagger her way into the bathroom and close the door, a bit louder than was strictly necessary, Tony let out a relieved sigh at the same time Tim did and collapsed back against his pillows.

“Maybe we should just call it a night.” He suggested.

“Yeah, I am getting kind of tired.” Kate agreed, looking more drunk than not. “We can try this again tomorrow night.”

“Hopefully with better booze.” Tim quipped, rising to his feet to slowly go about the process of tidying up the room.

Knowing Gibbs well enough to know that said man would be preforming a room check in the morning, very likely before anyone had even _though_ about getting out of bed for the day, Tony quickly scrambled to his own feet and began to go about the arduous process of collecting all the rouge skittles that had fallen off the beds and unto the white carpet below – hoping to prevent any colorful and hard to explain stains from forming on the spotless fibers and costing them their security deposit. And, not at all two individuals who would allow themselves to remain on their asses while those around them labored to accomplish a mutual goal, Kate and Jimmy joined their forced and began to go about placing the latter’s candy stash back in the empty cheerios box it had originally come from.  

He was just about ready to applaud Jimmy on the ingenuity of such a deception, as even the ever-shrewd Jimmy would never think to check the contents of a healthy snack to see if something else was hiding within, when the bathroom door opened and signified Abby’s return.

“Tony, what is this?”

Fully on edge upon hearing the tone of her voice, as there was something both queer and accusatory lacing the words, Tony felt himself stiffen and almost refused to turn around and confront the obvious before Jimmy’s peevish response to Abby’s question forced him into acting.

“What the hell, Abby? Did you go through his bag?”

“I thought it was Tim’s.” The young woman impatiently demanded. “I was going to borrow one of his shirts to sleep in.”

Although Abby did, indeed, have good cause for wanting a different garment to sleep in, given that she had upended a great amount of wine onto her formerly white pajama top, Tony felt that her excuse pertained more to covering her snooping ass than it did anything else. Because not only were she and Tim long since broken up, since the third and last time she had caught cheating on him, and as such was not at all entitled into digging into his items, so too was the slightly shaky tone of her voice a very indicator she was lying about her original motives in searching the bags. And, as such, he was even angrier at her than he would have been had she just been honest and upfront about her snooping.

“Do you wear diapers to bed, Tony?” Abby further pressed, ignoring the very tense atmosphere of the room.

Despite having no real need of turning around in order to ascertain that the goth girl was holding one of his bedtime diapers, as the loud crinkling sounds alerted him to such a fact, Tony forced himself to face the music of having his nighttime incontinence called into notice and turned around to face Abby with as much courage as he could muster. But, despite all his intentions to remain strong and proud throughout the whole ordeal, he found such a resolve wavering when faced, directly, with the sight of the unfolded diaper being held up in full display in front of everyone. Because not only was Jimmy the only one to have known about his unfortunate bladder issues, apart from Gibbs and Ducky, so too was he more than just a little mortified about the childish quality of the protective garments he used. For not only were they ridiculously thick and crinkly, more so than the geriatric versions he had sampled and wound up painfully allergic to, so too were they pastel colored and ridiculously decorated – with teddy bears in regards to the sample Abby had selected.

“You shouldn’t be digging through people’s stuff.” Jimmy hotly defended. “You’ve already been in trouble with Vance for that before.”

 “I wasn’t snooping.” Abby obstinately protested. “I was looking for another shirt.”

“Because I’m _sure_ you didn’t pack twelve other ones in your bag.” Jimmy scoffed.

Feeling his face flame brightly enough to the point that it felt like the skin on his cheeks was literally ablaze with a subdermal fire, Tony stood awkwardly rooted to the spot and silently prayed for an aneurism or a heart attack to do him in and end his misery. Because as smooth a talker as he was, which was quite so, there was just no way in hell he would ever be able to adequately explain away the package of diapers he had brought along on vacation.

“Abby…” Kate admonished, sounding suddenly sober. “I don’t think it’s any of our business.”

Stubbornly opting to ignore Kate’s very sound advice in favor of satisfying her own inappropriate sense of curiosity, in a very fine testament to her character, Abby once more rattled the offending diaper in a silent, and impatient, demand for answer.

“Is it some kind of kink?” She bluntly inquired.

“Abby!” Tim squawked “Leave it alone.”

“I’m allowed to ask questions, Tim.” Abby argued, casting him a quick glare before turning back to Tony. “Well?”

Feeling as if he had no other choice than to divulge to the rest of his team the reasoning behind his having a package of diapers on his person, as the fear of them making the wrong assumptions greatly outweighed his need for privacy, Tony awkwardly collapsed on one of the beds directly besides Jimmy and buried his face in his hands before launching into a basic, but succinct, explanation of the matter.

“Ever since I got shot last summer I need them.” Tony mumbled into his hands, feeling embarrassed tears prickling at the back of his eyes.

Because even though it was a medical reason that had him wearing diapers during the night, and the earliest parts of his morning, it was still intolerably embarrassing to have such a secret revealed without warning or his consent.

“But why are you using baby diapers?” Abby drilled, still holding the teddy-bear covered diaper up for the whole world to see.  

“They _aren’t_ baby diapers.” Tony heatedly denied.

“They _look_ like baby diapers.” Abby argued, giving the garment a good shake. “And they _sound_ like them, too.”

“Abby,” Tim began, sounding beyond exasperated and uncomfortable, “You need to – “

“Do you like to use baby bottles, too?” She inquired, more taunting than playful.


	3. Chapter 3

            Although it had once been very difficult for Gibbs to fall asleep at night, given than his formerly untreated anxiety had seemed to flood his mind with all sorts of garish scenarios the very minute his head hit the pillow, usually involving the death of Tony or the demise of his daughter and wife, he had found, much to his absolute delight, that with a little help from therapy, and a lot of help from Prozac, he was finally able to both fall asleep and _stay_ asleep with neither intrusive thoughts or night terrors to ruin his rest. But all the medication and cognitive behavioral therapy in the world wouldn’t be able to override his paternal instincts and keep him from startling awake the very moment he felt his distraught child wriggling into bed beside him – no matter _how_ sneaky and discrete said man was trying to be.

            “You okay, Kiddo?” Gibbs whispered, speaking quietly so as not to startle him or awaken the lightly-sleeping Ducky.

            Receiving only a very pitiful sniffle in response to such a very simple and well-meaning question, as well as a suspiciously wet face pressed against his exposed neck, Gibbs’s Papa-Bear instincts went on full alert and had him all but desperate to ascertain the reasoning behind his son being so distraught. Because while Tony was oftentimes dramatic, _exceedingly_ so, he seldom ever was weepy save for when he was sick or faced with a needle. And, given such, it was with no hesitation at all that Gibbs brought the back of his hand against his child’s forehead and checked for the telltale sign of a fever, wanting to stave off or prevent the worsening of an illness if there was, in fact, one to speak of.

            “Do you have a headache, Tony?” Gibbs pressed, upon discovering the forehead warm but not clammy. “Or a belly-ache?”

            Thoroughly surprised, and greatly hurt, when his innocent inquiry provoked Tony into whining loudly from the back of his throat and pushing him away before rolling unto his other side to avoid his presence, like a goddamn toddler in the midst of a nonverbal tantrum, Gibbs allowed himself a wounded frown before springing back into action and making another attempt to figure out what was troubling his kid. For given the way he was currently acting, namely like one hell of a brat, there had to be something seriously wrong, as Tony was almost never so disrespectful without cause.

            “C’mon.” Gibbs cajoled, rubbing his shoulder. “Talk to me.”         

            Wriggling away from his touch in a manner that seemed to suggest his hands were either far too cold, or warm, Tony growled loudly from the back of his throat and turned to bury his face in a stack of pillows.

            “I’m tired.” Tony grumbled, his voice horrifically muffled by the bedding.

            “Tony,” Gibbs began, taking a deep breath to maintain his temper, “Just – “

            “I’m _tired_.” Tony interrupted, giving the mattress beneath him a good kick.

            Despite wanting to do nothing more than coerce an answer out of his son, in the hopes of putting an end to his strife as soon as was possible, Gibbs reluctantly avowed to do just that. For not only did it make but little sense, to him, to try and force conversation with the young man who was every bit as stubborn as he was, given that such an act would only lead to an argument at best, so too would it hardly be fair for him to awaken Ducky with any further attempts to goad an answer from Tony. Not only because they were _all_ exceedingly tired after a long month of endless cases, but so too because the answer was likely as simple as Tim, or one of the girls, teasing him about something or other after they had all rendezvoused in the boys’ room after the bed checks had been completed for the evening. And, as such, it would be just as easy, if not more so, to pinpoint the guilty party, _or_ parties, at the breakfast table via their behavior and mannerisms toward the offended party than it would be in the middle of the night when everyone was far too exhausted to make any attempts at coherence.

             “Alright,” Gibbs conceded with a sigh, “We can talk about it tomorrow.”

            Despite the near total darkness of the room Ducky had insisted upon, and which he had bonelessly agreed to on the condition that they slept with the ceiling fan on, Gibbs felt all the more reassured that his decision to wait for the morning was the correct one as he noticed the relieved expression flooding over his child’s features as said man turned once more to rest upon his back. But as much as he would have loved to leave matters at just that, and preserve what tentative peace they had reached that night, he found that, as a father, he could do no such thing – at least not until he was certain his son was on top of his hygiene routines.

            “Do you have a diaper on?” He questioned, more so out of concern for Tony’s health than for the sake of waking up in a dry bed.

            Hating for his diapers to be referred to as anything other than his special underwear, Tony cringed violently and turned a rather remarkable shade of red before bringing his hands up to his face to conceal the evidence of said chagrin. But, rather than play into that misplaced embarrassment and apologize for calling the garments what they were, _diapers_ , Gibbs waited patiently for an answer to the question before taking steps to confirm the matter for himself after a good five minutes elapsed without a response. Because if Tony was going to act like a goddamn baby about his medical needs, Gibbs had absolutely no qualms whatsoever about treating him like one and sticking an investigative hand down the front of his pajama bottoms for a diaper check.

            “Anthony,” Gibbs sighed, “Go and get a diaper on before I do it for you.”

            “I don’t _need_ one.” Tony testily argued, slapping angrily at Gibbs’s hand as it was removed from his pants.

             Although Gibbs wanted nothing more than to simply give in to his child’s demands for independence and dignity, like any soft-hearted parent would, he forced himself to remain strong given that this was a pretty important health issue they were squabbling over. Because while he could deal well enough with owing the hotel half-a-thousand dollars if Tony happened to flood the bed with urine, or worse, he absolutely _wasn’t_ willing to listen to his heart-breaking whines and complaints when he developed another rash of the likes that had gotten infected badly enough to send him to the doctor’s office. As not only had that been one hell of a trial for Tony to contend with, what with the accompanying pain and sticker-shock of the medical-grade rash cream he had needed to use for a week, it had been one hell of an ordeal for _him_ just to stay on top of his kid enough to make sure that he was being diligent and responsible enough with the caring of said rash. Which, of course, he hadn’t been – out of sheer stubbornness and embarrassment alone. Making Gibbs the proverbial bad guy, and bastard, as he stepped in and took the matter into his own hand. Which he very well might have to now, judging by the way Tony was currently acting.

            “You _do_ need one.” Gibbs calmly retorted. “So, get one on before I do it for you.”

            “No.” Tony argued, pulling the blankets up over his head. “Go away.”

            Clamping down hard on his tongue to keep from retorting that _Tony_ could very well be the one who went away if he wanted to persist with acting like such an asshole, for no goddamn reason, when he was just trying to be helpful, Gibbs exhaled loudly from his nose before climbing out of the bed and trudging his way into the bathroom adjoining his room in pursuit of a bedtime diaper – the majority of which he had allowed his child to hide in his suitcase in order to lessen the chances of his incontinence being discovered. Because as much as he tried to hammer it into Tony’s head that he had nothing to be embarrassed about, he wasn’t so big of a dick as to forbid him any privacy in the matter.

            “Alright, Tony.” Gibbs directed, shuffling back into the dark room with the black and oversized toiletry tote he used as a diaper bag. “You have your choice of bears, dogs, or Disney princes – take your pick.”

            Becoming all the more frustrated with the situation at hand once he realized the offer of dressing _himself_ in a diaper was now off the table, due to his attitude and obstinacy, Tony yanked the blankets off his face as angrily as possible and glared up at him with a vehemence of the likes that would have been better reserved for a terrorist. But, rather than take any real offense at such a childish display, and resort to yelling as he might have before he started taking therapy, Gibbs simply brushed the nonverbal assault off as crankiness due to exhaustion and tugged the blankets off his son’s form.

            “Pull your pants down.” Gibbs ordered, wanting to at least give his child _some_ form of control in the situation.

            “ _No_.” Tony refused, crossing his arms over his chest.

            “Have it your way, then.” Gibbs sighed, moving to remove the garment himself.

            Evidently having suffered the ordeal of diapers far longer than he was completely willing to, and likewise having clearly lost his goddamn mind, Tony completely surprised the hell out of Gibbs by kicking him in the leg in an attempt to thwart his advances.

            “I said _no_.” Tony snapped, rolling unto his stomach.

            Startled into silence for a moment as he worked to contemplate the fact that his child had just _kicked_ him, and purposely to boot, Gibbs simply stood rooted to where he stood and struggled not to feel too overwhelmingly hurt by the ordeal even as he worked to rub away to sting in his leg.

            “Anthony, you either let him do it, or I will.” Ducky warned, a bit peevish from having his sleep interrupted for so long. “And I can _assure_ you, I won’t be as indulgent with your little tantrum as your father is.”

            Going limp, with tears in his eyes, as the very real threat of being diapered by Ducky presented itself, as any and all squirming would be met with a sharp swat to the rear should that be the case, Tony whined loudly from the back of his throat once more before bringing up his hands to hide his rapidly reddening face. But though that scene broke his heart, as Gibbs truly never _did_ like to be the asshole, he forced himself to move onward with the thought that it was usually always better to rip the proverbial bandage off.

            “I’ll make it quick.” Gibbs promised, taking pity on the boy.

            Receiving only a feeble whine in response to his promise of levity, and feeling very guilty as a result, Gibbs was even more gentle than usual when pulling down Tony’s pajama pants and slipping the portable diaper mat under his exposed bottom. An act which, while small, Tony seemed to at least somewhat appreciate as he refrained from squirming and remained limp as Gibbs dug through the pastel blue bag and removed a brightly-colored tube of diaper rash cream. Because while Tony wasn’t currently dealing with a traumatizing diaper rash at the moment, given that he was now taking better care of himself, Gibbs hadn’t failed to notice the signs of a mild rash spread out across his son’s sensitive skin.

            “ _No, Dad_.” Tony whined, peeking through his fingers to spot the tube. “It stings.”

            “It’ll sting even _worse_ if you leave it untreated.” Gibbs patiently reminded, pouring some of the thick white paste into his palm. “So, hold still.”

            Already knowing that he was not about to get his way anytime soon, especially right after kicking his father in the leg, Tony grimaced to show he keenly felt the injustice of the situation before clamping down hard on his bottom lip to keep from whining aloud as he allowed Gibbs to approach his exposed bottom and netheregions with the offensive cream he loathed so much. Although, once the cream actually touched his slightly-inflamed skin, that resolve went straight out the window.

            “Tony, baby, you need to try and hold still.” Gibbs encouraged, finding it very difficult, indeed, to apply the cream with the way he was wriggling. “I can’t finish if you keep squirming.”

            “It _stings_.” Tony grumbled, frowning heavily as Gibbs grabbed him by the ankle and gently tugged his bottom back into the center of the mat.         

            “Just count to fifteen.” Gibbs advised, keeping hold of the ankle with one hand as he used the other to apply the cream.

            Thankfully doing as he was bid, at least to the best of his ability, Tony squeezed his eyes shut tight and remained as still as humanely possible while the cream was applied to his rashy backside and genitals with gentle administrations.

            “There we go.” Gibbs applauded, using a baby wipe to cleanse his fingers. “Lift your butt up, now.”

            Despite looking as if he would much rather lop off his arm than comply with any action that would facilitate in the diapering of his bottom, Tony bonelessly complied with the request and arched his back long enough to allow Gibbs to slip a Disney-themed diaper underneath his bottom.

            “Almost done.” Gibbs reassured, struggling hard not to feel like an asshole as a flood of embarrassed tears fell down Tony’s cheeks.

            And, wishing to make good on that promise, and put an end to his child’s embarrassment, Gibbs quickly sprinkled a liberal amount of powder over his child’s bottom and groin before bringing the front of the diaper up over his tummy and fastening the tabs with expert precision.

            “Do you want your pants back on?” Gibbs questioned, patting his boy on the bottom to indicate that the change was over.

            Not at all surprised when Tony shook his head no and crawled back beneath the covers, as according to him the thick diapers were quite uncomfortable when squeezed into anything other than sweatpants, Gibbs deposited the no longer needed diapering supplies back into the diaper bag before crawling back into the bed beside his now actively-crying child.

            “Things will be better in the morning.” Gibbs murmured, pulling him into a hug.

            Almost instantly burying his face into Gibbs’s shoulder, in a very clear display of a need for comfort, Tony clung tightly to his pajama shirt and didn’t even protest as Gibbs began to go about rubbing soothing circles into his back in the age-old trick he always used to facilitate sleep.

            “I’m sorry I kicked you.” Tony sniffled, trying his hardest to be quiet for the sake of Ducky.

            “It’s alright, kiddo.” Gibbs comforted, still rubbing at his back. “I know you’ve had a long day. Just try and get some sleep, alright?”

            Nodding sluggishly in acquiescence to such a very sound plan, Tony rubbed away the remaining moisture from his cheeks and snuggled closer to Gibbs before closing his eyes and allowing the rhythm of the circles being drawn into his back to lull him into sleep.  

 


	4. Chapter 4

            While Kate couldn’t honestly say that she and Tony had _always_ been the best of friends, or even particularly close, until she had been shot point blank in the chest by Ari Haswari, and subsequently saved from a following headshot by Tony tackling her and taking the bullet in his stomach in her stead, she _could_ now claim such a revered title for herself. Because not only had said man remained loyally by her bedside as she slowly recuperated from her many surgeries, once he, himself, had been discharged from the hospital, so too had he taken it upon himself to visit her everyday after work and see to it that her fridge was stocked and her house tidied up to her exacting standards. And no decent person, with even the slightest understanding of emotions and behaviors, could ever allow their former grudge against a person to still fester after all of that. _Especially_ not after said former adversary had patiently, and diligently, assisted her with all her bathroom needs when their insurance-covered health aide could no longer work for her without an ungodly amount of money being paid out of pocket after just four weeks. Two people just couldn’t _not_ become close friends after something like that.

            And, given that such was so, it was with no small amount of hesitation that Kate decided to chew out Abby for her abhorrent behavior once they had both arrived back into their room and crawled into their respective beds. Because not only was she still utterly aghast and disgusted that the younger woman behave in such a manner towards _anyone_ , much less someone from their own team, she felt the injustice all the more keenly given that Tony’s apparent incontinence was very likely _her_ damn fault for getting sniped at in the first damn place. And even though she was, admittedly, exceedingly afraid of Gibbs’s wrath should the younger woman go sobbing over to him about how ‘mean’ she was being, Kate forced those very real fears aside with the remembrance that Tony had likewise risked Gibbs’s fury for _her_ a few months back after chewing Abby out for poking fun at her chest scar.

            “I think you need to apologize.” Kate began, without any preamble at all.

            Momentarily holding off in the slathering of her face with some pretty potent and reeking anti-acne moisturizer, the likes of which had her eyes burning and her throat hurting, Abby exhaled loudly through her nose to show that she was annoyed before turning to glance, dismissively, at Kate.

            “I already said I was sorry for telling you your scar was a bit crooked.” Abby sniffed, almost immediately turning back to finish her skincare routine.

            Despite the fact that many months had already passed since that infamous morning, wherein she had been reduced to tears in the elevator after such an uncalled remark from Abby, Kate _still_ couldn’t help but frown whenever the whole scar debacle was bought up. Because as much as she had always liked to believe herself a confident individual, her years in cheerleading attesting to such, Jesus Christ himself could come to Earth and assert that her scar wasn’t crooked until he was blue in the face and it _still_ wouldn’t make her feel any better about the fact that, even if it _were_ true that it wasn’t crooked, it was _still_ large and rather ugly. And all the time in the world wouldn’t make her any less angry at Abby for such an unsolicited assessment of her body, either.

            “Not about _that_.” Kate snapped. “You need to apologize to _Tony_.”

            “For what?” Abby scoffed, thankfully setting aside her pungent moisturizer. “It’s not _my_ fault he’s so sensitive about needing diapers.”  

            Only narrowly, _very narrowly_ , resisting the urge to make a peevish inquiry into whether or not the blasé young woman would feel the same if it had been _her_ cystic acne put on full display, a secret she worked diligently to keep concealed, Kate forced herself to remain at least somewhat civil by thinking of the wrath she would incur from Gibbs if Abby went sobbing to him that she was getting bullied by Kate about her horrendous adult acne.

            “You didn’t have to make it seem like it was some weird taboo, though.” Kate persisted, outright refusing to give any ground in the argument. “And you didn’t have to keep calling them baby diapers.”    

            Because even if the particular diaper she had stumbled across, and subsequently chosen to put on full display, _had_ borne a remarkable resemblance to the variety that a young baby would wear, it was still for perfectly legitimate medical reasons that he chose to wear them. And, as such, that meant he deserved a lot more respect and understanding than he would if it had just been a kink or fetish thing.

            “They _were_ baby diapers, though.” Abby reasserted, completely missing the point that Kate was trying to make.

            “That doesn’t mean you needed to point it out.” Kate waspishly rebuttled. “How Tony choses to deal with his bladder issues isn’t any of our business. And I think you really hurt his feelings by poking fun at him.”

            “Well, I’m not apologizing for something I don’t feel was wrong.” Abby stubbornly insisted. “And I _wasn’t_ poking fun at him, just pointing out a fact.”

            Struggling not to lose her patience, and temper, with the obstinate and headstrong young woman as it became quite obvious that she wouldn’t be making any concessions at all during their heated debate, much as she had refused to apologize for her scar remark until Ducky had threatened her with a trip over his knee the very moment he got her alone, Kate dug her fingernails into her palm and tried, one last time, to drill it into Abby’s head that _all_ people were entitled to a little bit of privacy – whether she liked being kept in the dark about certain things or not.

            “Some things don’t really need pointing out.” Kate tersely pointed out, feeling her blood beginning to boil.

            “If he wanted to keep a secret,” Abby began, her sugary voice chock-full of a condescending syrup, “He shouldn’t have kept his diapers where we’d see them.”

            Far more peevish with Abby’s answer than she might have been had such a condescending tone _not_ been used to drive home the point that the gothic woman in question just didn’t care about the privacy needs of others, Kate felt herself bristle and responded with far more vile than she intended.

             “He _did_.” Kate snapped. “ _You_ just chose to snoop through his belongings.”

            As she did with literally anything that wasn’t hers to be looked through. Whether it be a strangers purse at the movie theatre or her teammates medicine cabinets – back when she was still allowed into the majority of their houses and apartments.

            “I already told you, I was just looking for a – “

            “No, you weren’t.” Kate interrupted, refusing to even dignify Abby’s earlier lie with even the slightest semblance of belief.

            Not so much as missing a beat after being so directly called out, Abby primly set aside her medicated moisturizer on the bedside table nearest to her before turning her head to fix Kate with an expression that conveyed, perfectly well, that she knew herself to be the sole individual on the team who had Gibbs wrapped around her little finger – and that she fostered to qualms, whatsoever, in using that to her advantage.

            “That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.” The young woman declared, a somewhat dangerous expression splayed across her pallid face.

            “If that’s the case,” Kate stipulated, “You shouldn’t mind at all if I tell Gibbs.”

            Because as much as she hated playing the part of a tattle-tale, Kate was entirely willing to stoop down to such a level if it meant that Abby was held accountable for her actions at least once in her goddamn life.

            “Tell him what, Kate?” Abby demanded, wearing an ugly look on her face. “That we snuck out of bed after lights out? You’d get in trouble, too.”

            “You’ll be in more trouble for poking fun at Tony.”  Kate countered, with full confidence.

            After all, she had once watched, in a terrified silence, behind her desk and huddled up with an equally-as-frightened Tim, as Gibbs read Vance to filth for the latter’s grievous mistake of sending Tony out into the cold, without a jacket, to interview a witness far too nervous to meet in a more professional setting. And as for what her boss had done to Senior, after said man had called Tony a faggot, well, that just didn’t bare thinking about.

            “Gibbs will _never_ believe that I was poking fun at Tony.” Abby calmly responded, starting to go about the process of removing the several dozens of clips from her hair.

            “I don’t know, Abby.” Kate cautioned. “You seem to be skating on pretty thin ice with everyone lately.”

            “Not with Gibbs.” Abby dismissed, as if that were the only thing that really mattered in the grand scheme of things.

            “I wouldn’t be so sure.” Kate forewarned, methodically tying her hair into a plait to prevent snarls from forming.

             And though Abby looked at her as if she was insane in response to such an ominous prophecy, Kate knew that it was no mere scare-tactic she was making. Because not only was she now seldom invited out by any member of the team during their time off, excluding the overly indulgent Gibbs, so too had she not failed to notice the way in which their boss seemed to be becoming exceedingly frustrated with Abby’s childishness and impulsiveness – as she had not only caught him frowning and sighing heavily several times after one of said woman’s antics, but had likewise also overheard a snippet of him complaining to Ducky about her refusal to adhere to the same privacy rules as everyone else.

            “Well, I _am_ sure.” Abby tranquilly retorted. “Gibbs _adores_ me.”  

            “I don’t know why.” Kate sallied, angrily throwing herself down unto her mattress.

             A surly silence promptly descended into the room after that, the likes of which felt more appropriate for a funeral than it did for a squabble between to two women, and the both of them, far too stubborn to give an inch in the argument, stonily turned off their bedside lamps and rolled unto their sides to face their respective walls rather than run the risk of locking eyes with one another.

             It was only once the grating sounds of Abby’s snores flooded into the room, and effectively prevented sleep, that Kate allowed herself to wonder why Tony, her sudden new best friend, had failed to tell her about his incontinence. Because as much as she liked to think that it just wasn’t so, she couldn’t help but fear that he assumed the worst of her by thinking she would mock him for such a medical issue – even _after_ all their bonding in the hospital. And, quite frankly, that simply broke her heart, as it made her wonder what she had done, or said, to make him believe so little of her.

            _‘I’ll let him know I don’t think any differently of him in the morning.’_ Kate avowed, pressing an extra pillow over her ears to block out the sounds of snoring. _‘And I’ll make sure he believes me, too.’_

            But while that thought was a comfort in of itself, she found that sleep still evaded her so long as the quandary of whether or not to inform Gibbs of Abby’s misdeeds plagued her mind. Because while she wasn’t too worried about the potential of the younger woman pulling a fast one on Gibbs, given that he seemed to be growing more and more wary of her lately, she _was_ of the opinion that she needed to get Tony’s consent first – which would be something that was very hard to accomplish given the that said man preferred to avoid conflict. Although, given the strength of their friendship of late, and the passionate way in which he had defended her against the rude scar remarks, maybe, just maybe, he would be more willing to grant her full permission to inform Gibbs of Abby’s misdeeds. Because as young and harmless as Abby liked to present herself to the world, nearly everyone on the team, apart from Gibbs, believed that she had been given free-reign for far too long.

             

             


	5. Chapter 5

            Despite having wanted to start out the following morning _far_ better than he had ended the previous night, not only for the perseveration of his dignity but for the sake of his father’s patience, Tony soon found that such a mature resolved faded almost the very moment he awoke and discovered that not only was he in an entirely different diaper than he had been put to bed in, meaning that someone had swapped it out for a fresh on in the sometime during the night, so too was the sample he was currently wrapped up in very full and in the process of being pulled away from his slightly inflamed skin. Because while Tony had begrudgingly come to accept the fact that soaking-wet diapers were just simply going to be a part of his life from now on, at least until the muscles in his bladder and sphincter regained some strength, he _still_ hadn’t grown used to the feeling of a stinking mess being pressed up against his person. And, as such, it was with an admittedly grumpy attitude that he frowned up at his father and tried to wriggle away from the baby wipes currently assaulting his skin with their irredeemable coldness.

            “Tony,” Gibbs sighed, “Let’s try and start the morning off on a good foot, alright?”

            Wanting to do nothing more than snap at his father that such a request was ridiculously hard to comply with when he, a grown ass man, was currently in the process of having his diaper changed, for the second time that night/early morning, Tony opened his mouth to let the older man have it before cutting himself short upon seeing the exhausted expression on his father’s face. Because as angry as he currently was with the world, which was quite so, it just wasn’t fair for him to take it out on his father. Especially not when he was so good to him and _definitely_ not when he was in the midst of cleaning literal shit off his ass.

            “You look tired.” Tony frowned, forcing himself to remain still even though the wipes were, indeed, as cold as fucking ice. “Didn’t you sleep at all?”

            “Not really.” Gibbs confessed with a yawn, throwing the last of the befouled wipes in a grocery bag to be quickly discarded.

            “Why?” Tony groggily inquired, swiping sleepily at his eyes. “Did I talk in my sleep?”  

            Admittedly a very foolish question to be asking, as he almost _always_ had some sort of subconscious conversation with himself during the darkest parts of the night, Tony couldn’t even find it within himself to be cross at his father when he chuckled in response to such a silly inquiry.

            “Of course, you did. You _always_ do.” Gibbs chuckled, his calloused fingers gentle as he applied the rash cream where it needed to go. “This time I think it was something about _The_ _Titanic_.”  

            Feeling as if he could vaguely recall a dream-manufactured Jack Dawson drowning him in the third-class section of the infamous boat, _well before_ the doomed ship had taken on any considerable water, for reasons that were now lost to him, Tony felt himself blush slightly but nonetheless valiantly forced himself to hold as still as possible while the heavily-scented cream was applied to his flaming backside and genitals.

             “Is that why you’re so tired?” Tony fussed, sneezing softly as a gentle sprinkle of powder followed directly after the cream.

             “Nah.” Gibbs easily dismissed. “I was just worried you were getting sick is all.”

            Although it was an undeniable fact that Tony had been planning to fake an illness all along, to get out of having to see and interact with Abby, Tony couldn’t help but frown as the guilt that accompanied knowing Gibbs had been worried about his health all night flooded into his person.

            “Why would think that I was sick?” Tony gambled, pliantly arching his back in order to allow his father to place a bear-themed diaper under his bare butt.

            “Because you were grumpy with me.” Gibbs shrugged, pulling the front of the diaper up over Tony’s tummy and fastening it. “And you’re only ever grumpy with me when you don’t feel good.”

            Although his father clearly wasn’t intending to make him feel guilty for such a remark, but rather trying to convey his very real concern, such a remark effortlessly had Tony feeling badly about his behavior of the previous night.

            “Are you still mad at me for kicking you?” Tony worried, nibbling at a hangnail on his thumb.

            “I was never mad about that.” Gibbs reassured, swatting at Tony’s hand to get him to remove the thumb. “You were just tired, that’s all.”

             Although he couldn’t honestly say that he outright enjoyed the insinuation that he had been cranky the previous night, as that was a word people used in reference to toddlers, Tony was also woefully unable to dispute any such claim with any real success and, as such, he refrained from exhausting himself with any such attempts and instead concentrated on a simpler portion of their discussion.

            “I still shouldn’t have kicked you.” Tony yawned, struggling to keep his eyes open.

            “Maybe not.” Gibbs allowed, reaching down to tug his Batman pajama shirt back over his exposed tummy. “But today is a clean slate, yes?”

            Understanding that such a leading question was Gibbs’s way of giving _him_ the opportunity to pick what sort of day they were going to have, when it was still bright and early and he hadn’t yet done anything to get himself confined to his room, or a corner, for the remainder of the day, Tony immediately nodded to indicate he was going to make the right choice.

            “We’ll have a good day.” Tony meekly promised, before rolling unto his tummy to lessen the swaddling feeling the impossibly thick diaper separating his legs was causing.       “But what time is it? I’m still sleepy.”

            Of the opinion that it had to still be quite early, what with the small crack in the window curtains revealing a sliver of a dark sky outside, and the fact that Gibbs had swaddled him in a thick bedtime diaper rather than the slightly skinnier versions meant for catching small accidents during the day, Tony felt mostly justified in feeling somewhat disgruntled at being awoken so early – even _if_ it had been a medical necessity that had warranted such an awakening.

            “It’s just about dawn.” Gibbs clarified, reaching down to smooth his hair.

            “Can I go back to sleep then?” Tony pleaded. “I’m still tired.”                    

            “Of course.” Gibbs immediately indulged. “Get under the blankets though, I don’t want you to catch a chill.”  

            Finding that to be a very sound idea, indeed, Tony did just that and burrowed beneath the heavy blankets as Gibbs left to discreetly dispose of the diaper-filled grocery bag.

            “Are you going back to sleep, too?” Tony hopefully asked, once his father returned and joined him in the bed.

            Parental instincts seemingly kicking in as he lifted his arm to better allow Tony to nuzzle into his side, Gibbs rubbed at his shoulder but nonetheless disappointed him by shaking his head in the negatory.

            “Nah, Ducky and I are going to watch the History channel for a bit.”

            “Nazis again?” Tony grumbled, turning his face into his father’s shirt to block out the slight glare from the television.

            “For once, no.” Gibbs corrected. “This one is about Blackbeard the Pirate.”

            Despite having but little interest in such a historical person, if any at all, Tony decided that watching the short documentary wouldn’t be a _complete_ waste if it allowed him better snuggling access to his father than going back to sleep would.

            “Can I watch with you?” Tony pleaded, tugging on the collar of his father’s shirt.

            “I thought you said you were tired.” Gibbs reminded, sipping at his coffee.  

            “So are _you_.” Tony argued, shamelessly making full use of his puppy-dog eyes.   

            Never one-hundred-percent able to resist the affects of such an expression, save for that one time he had tried, and failed, to talk his father into letting him drive a full-fledged tank, Gibbs sighed and shook his head before reluctantly agreeing to his earlier request.

            “Fine.” Gibbs placated, smoothing his hair. “But I want you to rest your eyes and just listen, alright?”            

            While his father’s tone was, admittedly, more than just a little patronizing in nature, and of the likes he usually reserved for interviewing small children, Tony couldn’t help but humor the older man by closing his eyes as the idea, itself, did seem rather good.  And so it was, with only the slightest of frowns, that Tony snuggled even further into his father’s warm side and closed his eyes – using the precious opportunity of an uninterrupted early morning to try and formulate a plot as to how he might avoid Abby for the rest of the day. A feat that was much easier said than none, given that he had to conjure up an excuse serious enough to allow him to stay in bed but not so serious that a trip to the hospital, or a check up from Ducky, was called for.

            _‘It’ll have to be a headache.’_ He decided. _‘A really bad one.’_

             That would be just serious enough to allow him to play the part of an invalid for the remainder of the day, as well as give him leeway to develop other comorbid symptoms should the need arise. And, so it was, with those pleasing thoughts in mind, that Tony allowed himself to drift off into the deep sleep she had originally thought of fighting against just for the sake of being difficult.

           

           

            _It was his mother he dreamed of, healthy and smiling and full of light unlike the last two years of her life. The pastel blue couch, as well, situated snuggly in the cozy living room and just perfect for an early morning spent sipping at cocoa and laughing at the Tinman when he couldn’t get oiled up fast enough to keep from teetering over. Her perfume, a heady scent of freshly-bloomed roses that covered her creamy white skin and attracted all manner of butterflies to them whenever they sat outside. The feel of her long and dark hair brushing against his cheeks as the silky curls gradually fell free from her sloppy bun and brushed against his sensitive skin. The uplifting sounds of her nymphish laughter, light and as pleasing as windchimes on a breezy day. The – “_

            “GIBBS!”

            Startled awake, and subsequently ripped away from his very pleasing dream, the likes of which he had not experienced for the longest of times, Tony growled into Gibbs’s shoulder and prepared to lob a pillow at the guilty party before realizing it was _Kate_ who had come into the room unannounced.  

            “Abby has been in out bathroom for _two hours_ doing her makeup!” Kate cried. “I’ve been waiting to pee all morning!”

            While it _was_ rather hard to be angry at Kate for being so righteously indignant at Abby for holing up in their shared bathroom, especially so because makeup was nowhere near as important as legitimate bathroom needs, he was _still_ somewhat salty about the fact that her unannounced entrance had enabled her to see his diapered butt on full display given that he had very clearly kicked the blankets off of himself at some point during his morning nap.

            “Just use ours, Caitlyn.” Ducky directed. “There is no need for such theatrics.”

            “And _hurry_ ,” Gibbs encouraged, “ _Before_ you piss your pants.”                    

            Surprised to find that he, himself, didn’t have to urinate as he watched Kate frantically scurry into the bathroom to take care of her business, at least up until the point he remembered his diaper had _already_ been changed by a diligent Gibbs, Tony yawned loudly and peacefully before closing his eyes again with the full intention of falling back asleep with neither work, nor a wet bottom, to distract him from such a worthy goal.

            “You might as well get up for the day, Tony. It’s almost nine and time for breakfast.” His father declared. “You can nap later, if you need to.”

            While it went without saying that Tony enjoyed being babied, to a certain degree, he likewise couldn’t help but loathe such treatment being heaped upon him when he was wearing nothing but a diaper and a pajama shirt far too short to conceal the bulk of such – as it was one thing to be babied and quite another to be treated like an _actual_ baby.

            “I’m not really all that hungry.” Tony fibbed, quickly crawling back beneath the safety of the warm blanket before a newly-emerged Kate could see him in all his diapered glory.

             “You’re _always_ hungry.” Gibbs calmly countered.

            “Not today, I’m not.” Tony argued.

            Not so stupid as to disregard the rising tension in the room, and not so bold as to intervene and offer up her own opinion as to where the matter was concerned, Kate hastily quit the room just as quickly as she had barreled into it – leaving only the ever unflappable Ducky behind to witness the little standoff currently taking place.

            “Well, you still need to eat.” Gibbs rebuttled, tossing one of his thinner, daytime, diapers atop the bed. “So get up.”

             “I want to eat up _here_.” Tony argued, shoving the offending diaper unto the floor.

             Not even bothering to grace him with a sideways glance as he swapped out his pajama bottoms for a pair of relaxed jeans, Gibbs sighed loudly before making it known that the decision as to where they would have breakfast was not up to him.

            “We’re eating as a _team_ down in the restaurant downstairs.” Gibbs asserted, his tone calm but brooking no argument.

            “That’s fine,” Tony agreed, “But _I’m_ staying in bed.”  

            Initially far too shocked to respond to such sass with anything other than a halt in his walking, something that rarely ever happened, Gibbs took a few seconds to recover himself before scowling at Tony and yanking the blankets right off his body.

            “You’re not.” Gibbs swiftly corrected. “Get up.”       

            _“No.”_ Tony countered, crossing his arms over his chest.

            “Anthony Angelo – “

            “I’m _sick_.” Tony interrupted, taking great care to put a little whine into his voice.

             Immediately cursing himself for forgetting to use the better excuse of a headache in the midst of the argument, as Gibbs almost _instantly_ rose a doubting brow by way of reply, Tony frowned heavily and glared up at the ceiling.

            “Are you now?” Gibbs scoffed, invasively pressing a hand against his forehead. “You don’t have a fever.”

             Promptly stymied by such an obvious fact, and irritated as a result, Tony settled for prevarication in the very slim hope that such a tactic would, for once, work on his overly-shrewd father.

            “…Yet.” He weakly debated.

            “Tony,” Gibbs sighed sinking unto the mattress beside him, “Why don’t you want to have breakfast with the team?”            

            Seeing as how there was no way in Hell that Tony was ever going to admit to his father that all the tears of last night had been the result of his diapers being made fun of, as said man would outright insist upon babying him to make up for it, and very likely probably murder Abby atop all of it and go to prison for the rest of his life, he stubbornly clung to the same excuse he had given earlier – the poor quality of such be damned.

            “Because I have a headache.” Tony persisted, theatrically putting a hand to his temple.

            “Don’t you lie to me.” Gibbs frowned, legitimately wounded at the very concept.  

            Reluctantly coming to the conclusion that there would be no easy way out of the situation, or any way at all, Tony completed lost his patience and bolted upright in the bed to glare at his father.

            “Because!”

             Simply blinking in response to his shout, rather than slapping him upright the head as he might have a year ago, before all the anger management and therapy had kicked in, Gibbs shrugged into his shoes and shook his head.

            “You either eat with the team or you don’t eat all.” Gibbs declared. “You have exactly ten seconds to make your choice.”

             Taking all of two seconds to pout at such an unreasonable demand, and an additional seven to realize he was outright fucking starving, and hangry as a result, Tony slipped out of bed as quickly as possible and scrambled to collect the looser fitting pair of jeans Gibbs had already had the foresight to bring into the room for him. Because as angry as he currently was with the injustice facing him, that being the forbiddance of him choosing where he wanted to eat, he knew that he would have no real choice but to face Abby sooner or later and, as such, it was simply better to rip the bandage right off rather than tug at it.

            And so it was, with a begrudging spirit, that Tony reluctantly began to go about the process of getting dressed for the day – his only real comfort in such a matter being the fact that he opted to remain in his thicker diaper, for the comfort it provided, rather than swap it out for the thinner one. Because as much as he might hate the fact that he needed them, he was not afraid to admit, to himself, that there was a certain degree of security to be gleaned from them. Not that he would ever admit such a thing to anyone other than himself.

             “There, how easy was that?” Ducky scolded him, once he had successfully wriggled the jeans over his thick diaper. “There really was no need for all that fussing at all, was there?”

            Feeling a sudden fit of stupidity come over him in response to such a patronizing question, as Ducky had made him feel far smaller than he care to, Tony huffed loudly and glowered at the Medical Examiner.

            _“Yes.”_ He hissed, giving his foot a good stomp for measure.

            Hearing the sharp _crack_ that filled the air before he felt the sting Ducky’s hand brought to his bottom, Tony yelped loudly and instinctively brought his hands to his backside to protect himself from any further smacks – as thick diaper, or not, the Scottish man could inflict quite the sting when he wished to.

            “Don’t you look at me like that.” Gibbs denied, frowning deeply as Tony turned his woeful eyes on him in the hopes for sympathy. “You had that one coming. Now apologize.”

             Nowhere near dumb enough to give Ducky a second-round of backchat, as the stories Jimmy had shared with him told him all he needed to know of the consequences of such foolishness, and also _somewhat_ ashamed of his earlier tone, Tony immediately obliged and turned to face an unamused Ducky.

            “Sorry, Ducky.” He mumbled, forcing himself to meet his eyes.

            “As well you should be.” Ducky tutted. “You’ve been quite the brat these last few hours.”

            Unable to keep from recoiling as the verbal blow assailed him, as the rebuke stung even worse than the slap to his rear, Tony felt a trickle of hot tears press against the back of his eyes and immediately clamped down hard on his tongue to keep them from spilling out.

            “C’mere, Tony.” Gibbs encouraged, pointing at a wooden chair. “Let’s get your hair combed out, yeah?”  

            Smart enough to realize that such a request was Gibbs’s way of distracting him, and not simply a ploy to slap him upside the head to drive home the point he was, indeed, being a brat, Tony trudged over to the chair and plopped himself dramatically down unto it.            

            “Don’t pull the snarls.” Tony sniffed, swiping at his dripping eyes.

            “Now when have I _ever_ done such a thing?” Gibbs asked, passing him a tissue.

            Finding it harder and harder to be angry at the world the longer his father carefully administered to him, and soothed his angry vibes, Tony used the lotion-infused tissue to dry at the slight moisture that had escaped his eyes before turning his head to look at Gibbs again.

            “I really am sorry, Ducky.” Tony apologized, this time sincerely.

            “Let’s just try and have us a better day, yes?” Ducky encouraged, stooping down to slip Tony’s shoes unto his feet for him.  

            Understanding that the shoeing of his feet was a gesture of goodwill from the older man, and greatly relieved that said man wasn’t holding any grudge against him for such earlier sass, Tony wrapped his arms around his neck in an imitation of a quick before releasing him and allowing him to get his own shoes on.

            “I’ll be good.” Tony promised.

            “Good,” Ducky smiled, “I didn’t much feel inclined on sharing my first meal of the day with a brat.”  

           

             


	6. Chapter 6

            To say that Gibbs hadn’t experienced such a terse and awkward breakfast since the one he had been forced to endure at only eight years old, after his father had made the unfortunate discovery, via a loose-lipped nurse, that he had been complicit in his mother’s assisted suicide by keeping watch as Uncle LJ gave her the pills that would end her suffering,      would be a most egregious understatement. Because while he was more than just a little familiar with the various members of his team being petulant and surly with him directly after a particularly nasty and vehement chewing out, as well as childishly tight-lipped with him for the following few days, the sheer _terseness_ and pent up rage that coated the silence surrounding the table was a concept entirely, and woefully, unfamiliar to him. And that just rattled him to no fucking end, as he never liked for any such rifts to be fostered between members of his own team. Not only because such a scenario dangerous while out in the field, when trust and cooperation was crucial, but because he liked to think of his agents, especially Tony, as family and, as such, he didn’t much like the idea of them harboring such intense grudges against each other – especially not with knowing how it felt to go months without speaking to a relation.

            But it was with no small amount of consternation, or internalized blame, that he was left to ruminate over the fact that he couldn’t possibly provide a solution to the problem without knowing what the fucking issue was in the first place. And, as he couldn’t outright try and coerce an answer out of them via fear, out of a staunch refusal to behave in a similar fashion to his father, and likewise out of the realization that he very likely wouldn’t get a one hundred percent truthful answer from any one of the culprits if he had them so afraid of his wrath that they would say anything to appease him, whether entirely truthful or not, he was promptly left to suffer in silence with the distasteful knowledge that he would be forced to try and determine the problem via more discreet methods – effectively preventing him from enjoying his breakfast as much as he would have liked to given the four-star quality of the restaurant they were currently ensconced in.

            “Your meals have arrived.”

            More relieved than he had ever been in his whole entire life to see a food-carting waiter, which was certainly saying something given the way that he tended to extremely hangry quite often after a long and grueling day at work, Gibbs felt himself relaxing half a degree with the knowledge that the passing out of the food, and its initial eating would, at the very least, provide a temporary respite from the unspoken hostility currently polluting the table.

            And, apart from the notoriously picky Kate, who was currently glaring down at her selection of strawberry crepes in a manner that suggested they had just insulted her person in the most heinous way imaginable, the sensation of having a plateful of warm and delicious food settled in front of them had, indeed, seemed to almost instantly settle the majority of the unspoken resentment that had only moments earlier polluted their table.

            “For God’s sake, Kate.” Gibbs sighed, finding it increasingly hard to enjoy his espresso waffles with mocha drizzle so long as one of his agents wasn’t touching their food. “What could _possibly_ be wrong with your food?”

            “They probably have too much flavor.” Tim playfully razzed.

            Sensing that the lightly-teasing McGee was only seconds away from getting skewered by Kate’s unused fork, despite having arguably none nothing wrong apart from irritating a very hangry woman, Gibbs swiftly yanked the dangerous utensil out of his moody agent’s hand and lightly thwapped her knuckles with the tool to secure her attention.

            “What’s wrong with your food, Kate?” Gibbs repeated, _praying_ for a better answer than the one he had received during the goddamn infamous spaghetti meltdown of last summer.

            Because as strong as he liked to think his service in the Marines had made him, and as resilient as the harshness of his life had likewise made him, he knew, without even the faintest flicker of a doubt, that he did not have it within him to suffer through another ordeal of the same nature as, even now, he would occasionally suffer a terrible flashback of that hellish evening wherein his team’s first chance at food after a full thirty-two hours of working nonstop on an active terrorism case had been devastated by the Italian restaurants absurd decision to serve their spaghetti sauce with actual chunks of fresh tomatoes residing within. As not only had Kate taken such an egregious decision as a personal slight, orchestrated against her by the myriad of restaurant employees who had never before seen her face, so too had she reacted to such a crime by bursting into exhausted tears and throwing a toddler-esque tantrum well beneath the dignity of her person. The end result of such being, of course, that they, as a collective, were no longer welcome at the newly-opened Giovanni’s until the following year.

            “There’s strawberries in these, Gibbs.” Kate whined, pushing the offensive meal away from herself.

            “That’s because they’re strawberry crepes.” Gibbs reasoned, already having a sense of how this conversation was about to go.

            “They aren’t _supposed_ to have chunks of strawberries.” Kate ridiculously asserted, completely oblivious to her own absurdities. “Just the sauce.”        

            Feeling his blood pressure beginning to rise as he contemplated the fact that Kate was just as picky and prejudiced towards food as was a young baby forced to try out solids for the first time in their life, as he had absolutely _no_ experience with such frustrating behavior given that Kelly had _always_ been an adventurous eater and Tony was _far_ from picky, Gibbs took several deep breaths to stay his anger and took a long sip of his gourmet coffee before feeling calm enough to speak to his wayward young agent without raising his voice.  

            “Kate, why don’t you just _try_ a bite?” Gibbs encouraged. “You might like it.”

            “I already _know_ I won’t.” Kate grumbled, as ornery as a wet hornet.

            Understanding that his picky agent’s stubborn unwillingness to even sample the tiniest sliver of a new food might very well have come forth from her pushy parents inflicting the same goddamn meal of pancakes and sausage unto her for a full four days when she was in kindergarten, until her hunger had finally forced her to give into their tyrannical rule and force down the foods she had vehemently declared disgusting the first time she had sampled them, Gibbs refrained from approaching the frustrating situation as angrily as he might have had it been any other member of his team behaving in such a childish fashion.

            “Why don’t you just pick the strawberries out?” Gibbs suggested, feeling his own meal turning cold as the Second Great Food Debate waged on.

            “They already touched the sauce.” Kate frowned, refusing to be reasonable.

            Having no real idea about how to proceed with such a terse situation, at least not while acting in the role of an employer, Gibbs settled for broke and felt himself almost instinctively slip into what everyone on his team liked to call Papa-Bear mode. Because while he had no real intentions of policing _what_ the members of his team ate, so long as it didn’t have any immediately negative effects to their health, he was damn sure going to stay on top of making sure that they actually did, in fact, eat. Not only because it was far too dangerous for him to allow half-starving agents out into the field, where they ran the risk of becoming faint at the most inopportune of moments, but because he _cared_ about them as well and didn’t want to see them suffer – even _if_ said suffering was due to their own hard-headedness.

            “One bite.” Gibbs encouraged, returning her plate to its proper spot.

            Looking as if she would very much like to tell him just _where_ he could stick that plateful of strawberry crepes, yet far too smart and self-preserving to actually do so, Kate simply glowered and shook her head – refusing to even entertain the concept of trying new foods despite not being, in fact, the spoiled four-year-old she was acting like.

            “Kate – “

            “I don’t know why they couldn’t just make me toast like I asked.” Kate interrupted, a full-fledged pout on her face. “I _know_ they have bread.”  

            Although he was, admittedly, somewhat in agreement with her, as it seemed beyond ridiculous to him that the hotel gladly employed a chef stubborn enough to unwaveringly refuse to make any alterations or substitutions to the menu offered to guests, Gibbs knew better than to voice such an agreement, as by doing so he would only be confirming his agent that it was okay to be so unflappably and unforgivably picky.

            “You’re _not_ just eating toast for the rest of the week.” Gibbs declared, making sure to use a tone that brooked no argument. “So, you can just get that idea out of your head.”

            And even though Kate responded to such ‘harshness’ by plastering a mortally-offended expression unto her face, Gibbs held firm in his resolve and refused to budge. Because while his agent _would_ technically be eating if she chose to consume toast for the remainder of their forced vacation, the fact still remained that such a decision would be needlessly unhealthily given that they were plenty of other options on the menu that would suffice if she could just get over her food issues and give them a try.

            “You’re trying a bite.” Gibbs announced, cutting off one the tiniest slivers as he could from one of the crepes before jabbing it with a fork.

            Already knowing that Kate would immediately begin to argue with such an edict before he had even opened his mouth to deliver it, and having likewise plotted to use that fact to his full advantage, Gibbs wasted no time at all in depositing the tiny forkful of food into his unsuspecting agent’s mouth.

            “Don’t you dare spit that out, Caitlyn Elizabeth.” Gibbs warned, raising a warning brow as she pursed her lips in preparation of doing just that.

            Having never before addressed any member of his team, apart from Tony, by their full name, _nor_ addressed them with such a parental tone, Kate was understandably more than just a little shocked and, as such, almost instinctively swallowed down the food that had just been coerced into her person.

            “There,” Gibbs smirked, “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

            Far too clever to make any real attempts at lying to his face, no matter _how_ angry she currently was with him at the moment, Kate simply scowled and addressed him with as much attitude as she dared to.

            “I’m not two.” She grumbled, scooting her chair further away from him.

            “Then quit acting like it.” Gibbs advised, leaning over to press the fork back into her hand.

            Accepting the fork with all the reluctance of a convict taking a seat in the electric chair, Kate huffed loudly and angrily stabbed the utensil into one of the three crepes taking up residence on her plate.

            “Kate – “

            “I don’t _like_ strawberries.” She complained, as if that excused her sorry lack of manners.

            Parental instincts telling him that a little bit of leniency and compassion was now being called for, rather than the gruff authoritative stance he might have utilized just last year, Gibbs refrained from threatening to keep her in the chair until she complied and ate the damn crepes and instead pulled the plate closer to himself before beginning to go about the tedious process of picking 27 sections of halved strawberries out of one of the breakfast confection so that his agent could at least have the semblance of a decent breakfast.

            “There.” Gibbs grumbled, shoving the plate back towards her. “I want you to take at least three bites.”

            “One.” Kate bargained, poking investigatively at her food as if she were trying to ascertain whether or not it really was edible.

            “ _Three_.” Gibbs countered, giving her a warning look.

            Immensely thankful when his patented glare almost instantaneously motivated his hangry agent to dissect three of the smallest bites he had ever seen off her crepe, before slowly and reluctantly moving the smallest of those bites into her mouth with the air of someone who was knowingly ingesting poison, Gibbs allowed a relieved sigh to escape his mouth before turning back to focus on his own breakfast of what was now lukewarm waffles.

            Unfortunately for him, it was not for very long that he got to enjoy his food. For it was almost exactly after he had moved unto his second, now cold, waffle that Tony violently flinched and rattled the whole table before glaring at Abby.

            “Behave, you two.” Gibbs warned, highly unamused as he watched Abby flinch from what was surely a retaliatory kick.

            “She kicked me first.” Tony complained, still glaring daggers at the young woman in question.

            “I don’t care who started it.” Gibbs assured. “Because I’m ending it.”

            And, thinking that was all that was needed to put an end to whatever ‘it’ was, Gibbs happily placed another bite of his waffles into his mouth just in time for his full mouth to keep him from chewing out Tony for his resulting backtalk – although, given the events that immediately followed, he would later reflect upon that and be grateful.

            “You _never_ care who starts it.” He moodily accused.

            “Excuse me?” Gibbs growled, forcing the waffles down his throat before they were of proper swallowing size. “What did you – “

            “Don’t mind _him_ , Gibbs.” Abby encouraged, turning her nose up into the air. “He probably just needs a diaper change.”

             

 


	7. Chapter 7

            While Gibbs had never been one to revel in the fact that he was so effortlessly able to evoke the fear of God into his agents with just one look alone, and rather preferred to view such a talent as a necessary evil that needed utilized from time to time to keep his team both safe and functional, he couldn’t help but notice, with a queer shiver of emotions, that Abby, for the first time in her life, seemed to finally realize that she had irreversibly fucked up. Because not only had her pale blue eyes gone comically wide the very second that Tony had fled the table in an embarrassed rage, so too had she grown several shades paler, in a manner that seemed to defy logic, as those remaining at the table went deathly silent and looked up at him with the anxious and fearful expressions they wore whenever they believed Gibbs was about to strangle someone particularly infuriating or abusive toward his agents. But while he did, indeed, wish to inflict some sort of physical rebuke unto the chronically-unrepentant woman, namely one of the spankings he so loathed to dole out, he was thankfully able to restrain himself from such an impulsive move via the aid of the breathing techniques he had learned in anger management and settled, instead, for a tamer show of authority by calmly moving across the table to secure the irreverent girl by the ear before yanking her, a bit more firmly than necessary, to her feet – an act of discipline she was thankfully clever enough not to immediate fight against, as he really had no particular inclination to hurt his back by throwing a fully-grown woman over his shoulder, no matter _how_ skinny said adult was.

            “Gibbs – “Abby began, an indignant yet panicked expression coming across her features as he tightened his grip.

             “Shut it.” He growled, clamping down on any immediate protests by giving her rapidly reddening ear a good tug.

            Possessing enough good sense and self-preservation to keep whatever protests she had about such rough treatment to herself, Abby kept uncharacteristically silent and didn’t even struggle too violently as Gibbs yanked her right up out her chair, via the ear, and dragged her out of the upscale restaurant attached to the hotel and right into the elevator right outside its doors – paying no heed at all, all the while,  to all the gawkers and onlookers who, though clearly wondering why it was that a grown man was manhandling a young woman so roughly, were far too timid and nonconfrontational to approach him with such misgivings.

            “Gibbs,” She pleaded, looking quite dolefully up at him with her pale blue eyes as the doors of the elevator closed on her last chance for escape, “I was just – “

            “ _Shut it_.” Gibbs interrupted, giving her ear a harsh, yet not too violent, tug.

            Yelping extremely loudly as an influx of pain no doubt flooded down the entirety of her multi-pierced ear, Abby grimaced grotesquely and made the great mistake of trying to free herself from his iron grasp by performing some convoluted twisting maneuver, the end result of which only resulted in more pain for herself and Gibbs stubbornly refused to relinquish his hold on the cartilage and even pinched it tighter to his disapproval of such theatrics.

            “You’re hurting me.” Abby whined, crocodilian tears beginning to well up in her eyes.

            “Keep whining and I’ll give you something to _really_ cry about.” Gibbs warned. “Now be quiet.”

            Sniffling loudly in a clear attempt to display her great disdain at being treated like just another member of the team, as by that point in time she was woefully far too familiar with being given special treatment, Abby allowed her bottom lip to poke out before swiping morosely at her suspiciously non-red eyes. It was then, and only then, that Gibbs finally realized that fixing such a situation would be nigh on impossible, as not only had refused to discipline the woman, in any sense of the word, over all the years she had been employed, so too had he outright denied Ducky or Vance the opportunity to do what he wouldn’t.

            But that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to at least _try_ to bring Abby back into line; If not her own sake, then at the very least for the rest of team members he had unknowingly been snubbing with his blatant favoritism for the last several years. He had, after all, put far too much work and affection into the young woman to just let her go from his heart without a fight and significant effort on his part. Although, what the end result of such efforts would be, remained largely up to her, as Gibbs was not a man particularly inclined toward putting any significant effort into a failing relationship when the second half of said relationship refused to do the same.

            “Into your room.” Gibbs directed, all but shoving her out of the elevator once it stopped at their floor. “ _Go._ ”

            Shamelessly sighing in relief as her bright red ear was finally relinquished from his iron grip, Abby snaked a trembling hand up to rub away the violent sting currently assaulting her ear – clearly mistaken in thinking herself out of the woods, now that she was no longer being held physically hostage, until Gibbs lost his patience with her theatrics and sent her scurrying with a well-aimed swat to her rear.  

            But far too angry to deal with her transgressions straight away, given that he knew all too well that it was neither fair nor prudent to dole out discipline in the heat of the moment, as that was how _his_ own father had liked to things after his mother had died, leaning to some pretty intense switchings when he was still far too little to fight back,  Gibbs leaned himself against the wall adjacent to the door and forced himself to count to three-hundred before moving on to confront the socially-inept young woman. And though it was, admittedly, with great trepidation that he stepped into the hotel room he had vanquished the culprit into, as was never one to enjoy playing the part of a hard-ass, no matter _what_ anyone would like to believe, he stepped into the slightly-messy room nonetheless and worked to comfort himself with the knowledge that once he was done meting out discipline he could go directly to Tony and give out the comfort that he much preferred to give instead.

It was to no one’s surprise, let alone _his_ , that his unannounced entrance was ‘blessed’ by the infuriating sight of a very disgruntled Abby sprawled out across the top of her mattress with one of the most petulant expressions he had ever seen splayed across her pale face. Although, upon hearing the door close and his footfalls ascending towards the bed, her tune of nonverbal defiance almost immediately shifted into that of a woeful nature as she sat up and looked at him with an expression he assumed was better reserved for an abused child or freshly-kicked puppy.

“Gibbs,” Abby sniffled, putting on quite a show, “I – “

 “Pack your bags, Abby.” Gibbs directed, his heart heavy but his resolve as strong as ever.

            There was, he felt, no other choice at all other than the one he was currently presenting. Because not only did the young woman in question need dealt some sort of serious punishment for her latest of infractions, one far more severe than one of his mild spankings could offer, so too was he _far_ too angry with her for it to be considered safe, in any stretch of the words, to be around her at the moment. And, perhaps most importantly of all, Tony, along with all his other teammates, simply deserved better than to have the rest of their vacation ruined by her predilection for immature antics.

            “What?” Abby exclaimed, surprised indignation written all over her face.

            “Your bags.” Gibbs repeated, more than just a little terse. “Pack them. _Now_.”

            Blinking quite stupidly in response to such a simple edict, in a self-depreciating manner that greatly undermined the existence of her fierce intelligence, Abby frowned deeply and furrowed up her brow at him – clearly far too unfamiliar with the concept of being given such a direct, and displeasing, order from her Silver Fox.

            “But…It’s only Monday.” Abby reminded him, clearly thinking he had lost his wits.

            “I know what day it is.” Gibbs snapped, stomping around the messy bedroom until he located her purple suitcase lying in the bathroom.

            Still rooted unto her mattress from the sheer shock of finally being disciplined alone, Abby shook her head in disbelief and refused to move even as Gibbs increased the intensity of his glare with the motives of compelling her to do just that.

            “You can’t just send me home.” She guffawed, a slight tremble in her bottom lip as she made yet another attempt to manipulate him via emotion.

            Although such a childish response was well beneath his dignity, Gibbs couldn’t help but roll his eyes in response to such a ridiculous assumption. Because not only _could_ he do just as he had planned, and send the unrepentant young woman home, he _was_ going to just that. And Vance, for once, would no doubt be as happy as fuck with him for making such a call, as he had been begging, for _years_ , for him to do something about Abby’s lack of professionalism.

            “I _can_ and I _am_.” Gibbs promptly assured, throwing her designer suitcase down unto the floor. “I’m absolutely _disgusted_ with you and I can’t have you around me, _or_ the team, right now.”

            And though his words were, indeed, harsh in nature, they were true nonetheless. For while he could deal with all her absurdities well enough, provided he was free of a headache or a sore knee, and stomach her uncalled for randomness tolerably well, so long as he took some time away from her to recharge his ‘social batteries,’ he could, by no means, accept her blatant bullying of one of her fellow team members. Such behavior was simply beyond his acceptance. And he was starting to think, rather belatedly, that she had been getting away with such behavior for far too long, as not only had Vance and Ducky been continuously complaining about her behavior and attitude, and outright nagging him to discipline her, so too had the other members of his team been outright refusing to interact with her unless forced to by work obligations. And there was nobody to blame for such appalling behavior other than himself and her.

            “Gibbs,” Abby whined, conjuring up more crocodile tears, “I was just teasing – “

            “That wasn’t teasing!” Gibbs snapped, finally losing her temper. “That was _bullying_ , pure and simple. And you damn well know it!”

            And, far more insulted by her stubborn unwillingness to even consider the fact that she might be in the wrong about something than he was about her staunch refusal to accept the terms of his order, Gibbs bristled and angrily began to go about the process of collecting whatever black articles of clothing he could find before tossing them into the suitcase he had just upended.

            “Gibbs – “

            “No.” Gibbs barked, chucking a pair of black boots into the suitcase. “No excuses. You were in the wrong, plain and simple.”         

            Finally rising to her feet as Gibbs prepared to launch a handful of her makeup products into the purple suitcase, not out of an excess of feelings but to prevent him from packing in a way that was contradictory to her wishes, Abby hastily gathered up the cosmetics into her hands before depositing them atop the mattress she had just vacated.

            “I really don’t feel like I was in the wrong.” Abby argued, the first notes of an attitude beginning to creep into her voice.

            “You never do Abby, that’s the problem.” Gibbs returned, struggling not to resort to yelling.       

            Perpetually-spoiled throughout the entirety of her life, a process that had no doubt begun since the first day the Scuito’s were able to bring her home, Abby obstinately pressed onward with her non-existent argument that she had done no wrong so long as _she_ didn’t feel badly when all was said and done.

            “I just don’t think that – “

            “ _Enough, Abby.”_ Gibbs growled. “I’ve had _enough_. And until you learn to behave as a member of this team, I don’t want to have you around reaping the benefits of it. So, you can just head right back home and use that time to think about how you might do that.”

             Pale facing turn bright red with a toddler-worthy rage, Abby obstinately folded her arms across her chest and promptly did what no other member of the team had ever done – yelled right into his face.

            You’re being unfair!” She accused, blue eyes glistening angrily.

            While he was, admittedly, being quite unfair, he knew that such an injustice had nothing at all to do with _her_ but rather with the other members of his team that he had been neglecting and outright degrading by allowing Abby to get away with all the things they couldn’t.

            “I’m treating you like I would any other member of the team.” Gibbs impatiently lectured. “And that you apparently have an issue with that, _is_ the problem.         So, pack up your stuff, Abby. I want you gone before noon.”


	8. Chapter 8

            Despite having always prided himself on his great ability in maintaining his emotions in even the most tumultuous of situations, a fact that made him _perfect_ as Team Lead, Tony was, inarguably, quite a sensitive young man outside of the field. And, as such, Gibbs was not at all surprised when he entered the room he shared with Ducky and found said man crying profusely into the pillows as he lay atop the blankets of the bed in a fetal position.

            “You’re breaking my heart, Kiddo.” Gibbs frowned, hurrying over to the bed to sit by his side.

            Taken more than just a little aback as Tony actually _growled_ at him before rolling towards the middle of the bed, and subsequently out of his reach, Gibbs blinked stupidly and made the great mistake of trying to reach out another hand toward his distraught child – only to wind up having such a well-intentioned and caring act provoke the young man into wriggling further away from him and, as a result, very nearly off the edge of the bed.

            “Tony – “

            _“Go away.”_ Tony grumbled, burying his face even further into the pillows.

            More than just a little willing to let the attitude slide, considering the circumstances behind its existence, Gibbs refrained from aiming a swat at the younger man’s and, instead, settled for giving him the physical space he was so clearly needing at the moment.

            “Need I remind you that this is _my_ room.” Gibbs countered, his tone more playful than stern.

             Apparently none too keen for any lightweight humor at the moment, despite that being one of his favorite forms of comedy, Tony sighed loudly enough for the dead to hear before, Gibbs assumed, rolling his eyes at the wall he was now facing.

            “Just hurry up and yell at me.” Tony directed, surlier than a harassed cat.

            More hurt than he cared to admit in response to such a baseless assumption, as his only motives for entering the room revolved around providing comfort for his child, Gibbs felt himself frowning and becoming, as a result, briefly relieved that such an easily misconstrued facial expression could not be seen from his son’s current vantage point.

            “I’m not going to yell at you.” Gibbs swiftly assured. “Why would you even think that?”

            “Because you _always_ do whenever Abby and I get into an argument.”

            While his first instinct was, of course, to deny such an unflattering painting of his picture, as it wounded him to the very core, it was to his great surprise, and chagrin, that he found he could do no such thing. For not only was he quick to assume anyone other than Abby to be the culprit behind any such squabbles, at least up until a few months ago, so too was he particular harsh to Tony in those regards, as he had always mistakenly assumed that it was jealousy provoking such resentment of Abby – rather than justified annoyance and hostility. But it was not until just now that he had ever realized such a fact – no matter how blatant it might have appeared to anyone else. And, as such, he found he could only offer up an apology rather than the denial he would have so loved to give in its stead.  

            “I know.” Gibbs sighed, genuinely aggrieved. “And I’m sorry. Just know that things like that won’t be happening anymore, alright? I already sent her home and I plan on lowering the boom on her when we get back.”

            Struggling not to feel too wounded as Tony rolled over to face him with an incredulous look on his face, Gibbs grimaced repentantly and stretched himself out to lie down behind his still red-faced child.

            “I know, I know.” Gibbs sighed. “I let her get away with too much and it spun out of control. But I promise, I’m going to work on fixing it.”

            Knowing Gibbs well enough to understand that his promises were as good as written in stone once spoken aloud, and familiar enough with his characteristics to accept that his statement was as close to an apology as he was ever going to get, Tony stretched out the proverbial olive branch and brought his forehead to rest up against Gibbs’s in their private display of affection.

            “How is she getting home?” Tony inquired, absurdly worried about the welfare of his antagonizer.

            “Not in a morgue, if that’s what you’re worried about.” Gibbs reassured, smoothing sown his hair.

            Indulging Gibbs with a little smile in response to his joke, despite the low quality of it, Tony struggled to free his arms from the swaddle of blankets he had inadvertently wrapped himself up in, and used his hard-earned victory in such an endeavor to swat Gibbs’s hands away from his hair.

            “Can you really just send Abby home?” Tony inquired, forever worried that Vance would lose his temper with Gibbs and fire him.

            “It’s my team,” Gibbs shrugged, “I can do whatever the hell I want with it.”

            Except, of course, allow them to rack up three hundred extra hours of overtime ever since the year HR had threatened to turn both he and Vance in for human rights violations.

            “But what about Vance?” Tony fussed.

            “Vance will probably be happy as hell that I’m finally doing something about her.” Gibbs quipped. “Hell, he and Ducky are probably going to throw a party once they find out.”

            A party that would no doubt involve a vast quantity of alcohol for Vance and a gratuitous amount of marijuana for Ducky.

            “And don’t you worry about everyone else, Tony.” Gibbs encouraged. ‘Because if they even _think_ about teasing you for – “

              “They won’t.” Tony confidently asserted. “They already know.”

             Surprised beyond belief by such a confident confession, as Tony was as embarrassed about his incontinence as Kate was about her surgical scars, Gibbs felt his eyes go wide and his mind go blank.

            “You…You told them?”

              “No.” Tony scowled, bringing his forehead to rest against Gibbs’s chest. “Abby was snooping through my stuff and found one of my…and then she showed everyone.”

            Immensely thankful that Abby was nowhere near in his general vicinity, as he felt he would have no other choice but to strangle her had she been, Gibbs felt his face turn bright red with color and forced himself to count to fifty before he experienced an anger-induced stroke.

            “Nobody has been picking on you, have they?” Gibbs interrogated, prepared to go full Papa-Gibbs mode should that be the case.

            “No, they didn’t.” Tony immediately confirmed.  

            Feeling immensely proud of his agents for being so mature and sympathetic about such a sensitive medical issue, as not everyone in such a field was so professional with their work relationships, Gibbs silently avowed to himself to do something extra nice for them while they were still on vacation.

             “Do you think you’re about ready to head back down yet?” Gibbs coaxed, wishing to get a good breakfast into his child.

            “Can I just have a big lunch?” Tony pleaded. “I want to stay here with you for a little while.”

             Seeing as how Tony had already downed about three pounds of bacon before Abby had started in with her antics, and three or four slices of toast to boot, Gibbs had no qualms whatsoever in indulging such an innocent request.

            “Alright then,” Gibbs charitably agreed, rolling off the mattress, “We can do that. How about a little television?”

            “Something classic?” Tony immediately requested, making no move to free himself from his blankets.

            “Of course.” Gibbs immediately capitulated, lifting the human burrito up into his arms with one careful maneuver. “Because God forbid we watch something modern.”

            Making no move at all to free himself out of Gibbs’s grasp, as not only was he _not_ afraid that Gibbs would drop him, but so too was he enjoying all the pampering, Tony giggled loudly and wrapped his arms about his neck for easier, and safer, transport.


	9. Chapter 9

            Tony was snuggled up quite comfortably, on the plush sofa in the living room, with his head pillowed in Gibbs’s lap, and his long legs stretch out quite comfortably, when their impromptu Lone Ranger marathon was untimely interrupted, but not ruined, by the arrival of his fellow agents and Ducky and Jimmy, as well. But while Tony was always happy for their respective company, especially that of Ducky’s, as he had long since come to think of the man as an uncle, much as Jimmy thought of Gibbs as an uncle, it wasn’t until he noticed the presence of his favorite brand of popsicle in their hands that he approached their sudden appearance with anything other than mild interest and slight annoyance.

            “Can we come in?” Jimmy meekly inquired, already seating himself on the back of the spacious sofa as Ducky claimed a recliner and left Kate and Tim alone to stand awkwardly in the middle of the living room.

            “Do I have a choice?” Gibbs dryly inquired, playful rather than rude.

            Confident enough in the strength of their decades-long friendship to respond to such a harmless dig against his child by lobbing a wadded up napkin at the back of Gibb’s head, without having to fear any violent retaliation in return, Ducky smirked as the projectile made its target and effortlessly evaded the sock launched at him in return with the aid of his giant book on Chinese horticulture. But, never one to allow those he loved to go unavenged, _especially_ his father, Tony leveled the battlefield by tossing a Cheeto at the culprit and subsequently achieved victory when the orange projectile hit the Scottish man’s eyebrow. An impressive feat that, understandably, only provoked Jimmy into pinching the back of Tony’s neck with one of his infamous nerve-damaging manipulations. Which, in turn, only provoked Tony to reach up and grab Jimmy’s ankle with the clear intentions of flipping him right off the back of the couch before Gibbs intervened and put a stop to their mischief with just one glower alone.

            “You two are _not_ wrestling on the back of the fucking sofa.” Gibbs growled. “If you want to go and kill each other, do it on something that isn’t white.”

            Mistakenly sensing a roomful of tension when there was nothing at all but some very minor uncle-gruffness pervading the air, Tim fidgeted uncomfortably for a moment before deciding to diffuse the non-existent tensions with a food-related distraction.

            “We got popsicles, Tony.” Tim enticed. “And I bought you a blue one.”

            Not at all surprised by such a kind gesture, as Tim was almost always thinking of everyone else, sometimes to the detriment of his person, Gibbs nodded his appreciation at the dieting young man and tried not to grunt too loudly as Tony used his elbow to sit up and sent subsequently sent a shockwave of pain down his thigh.

            “It kind of melted though,” Tim frowned, surrendering the treat into his friend’s outstretched hand, “Sorry.”

            “It’s okay.” Tony immediately reassured, ripping the popsicle open with his teeth before Gibbs could stop him. “I like them melty, anyways.”  

            Having almost immediately instituted a strict no-colored-beverage anywhere _near_ the pristine white carpets, it took every fiber of strength within his being not to outright forbid the brightly-colored popsicles from being allowed into the living room. As not only was Tony a notoriously messy eater, to the extent that Gibbs sometimes thought of making him wear a bib during particularly spillable meals, so too did he know that any attempts to vanquish the sugary treats would be met with the very annoying, yet sound, argument, that they were technically solids and in an enclosed container as well – the only stipulation Gibbs had been nagged into making in regards to the liquid rule.

            “Where did you guys go off to?” Gibbs questioned, of the opinion that such an upscale hotel would _never_ condescend to sell such childish confections.

            “Ducky made us go for a walk outside and an ice-cream truck drove by.” Tim dutifully explained, still as nervous and on-edge as he was during work.

            Feeling somewhat badly that Tim was still finding it exceedingly hard to relax while on vacation, as it was very likely his presence during such downtime that was causing such an inability to unwind for the timid young man, Gibbs sighed inwardly and resolved to show his newest of agents that he could, in fact, be quite tolerable outside of the work-field when nobody’s careers, or lives, were at stake. _Especially_ so now that he was in therapy and on medication to boot.

            “And who was the lucky one that got to chase after it?” Gibbs wondered, already having a pretty good idea as to the answer just by looking at one of his agent’s very smug faces.

            “No one did.” Kate corrected, still riding high on her victory. “I just threw my shoe at his back windshield and he stopped.”

            Knowing his sole female agent to have one hell of an arm on her, after the one evening he had inadvertently startled her into giving him a black eye by getting out of his car in the dark parking garbage at the same time she was moving to get into _hers_ just one space away, Gibbs felt himself tensing up at the thoughts of an angry Vance ruining his day by calling him up to bitch about a vehicle-window being broken by one of the young individuals under his care.

            “Kate, I swear to God, if you – “

            “It was just a rubber flip-flop.” Kate hastily reassured, kicking up her foot to showcase a sample of the obnoxiously pink and worn footwear.

            Already having told his agents an umpteenth time that they were not allowed to wear any of the footwear they had already worn outside within their rooms, given the stark whiteness of their carpets, yet in far too charitable mood with them all to play the part of the asshole by chewing them out about it, Gibbs simply raised an eyebrow at the offending items and waited, patiently, until they all the got the hint and kicked their respective shoes off before setting them by the door.

            “You kids are killing me.” Gibbs sighed, watching as Kate’s filthy flip-flop left behind a dusty stain on the door after said woman opted to kick off her footwear rather than chose to remove it in a fashion that resembled the grown woman she really was.

              Once more mistaking Gibbs’s gruff sarcasm for genuine surliness, in a manner that reflected far more poorly on _him_ than it did the agent in question, Tim once more fidgeted awkwardly before making an attempt to broker the peace with an offering of food.

            “I got you a green one.” Tim announced, thrusting a popsicle his way. “I didn’t know what flavor you liked, so I just got you one of your favorite color.”

            Although he honestly couldn’t say that he was surprised that Tim somehow knew his favorite color without being explicitly informed on such, given that said young man seemed to have knack for dissecting nonverbal clues, Gibbs _could_ say that he was more than just a little flattered that his newest agent cared to apply such methods to _him_.

            “Thanks, Tim.” Gibbs grunted, ripping open the treat with his fingers before downing it in one go as a gesture of good-will.

            Seeming immensely relieved to see Gibbs accepting his peace-offering without barking at him about brown-nosing, something he wouldn’t have done even _before_ therapy, Tim sighed softly and looked to Kate in a clear attempt to discern what it was they were going to do next – far too meek and unsure of himself to make any suggestions himself, despite having already been on the team for a good few years by that point.

            “Are you watching the History Channel?” Kate guffawed, missing Tim’s cue as she stared at the television in clear confusion as to why they were willingly watching a stereotypical Ducky program without having first been coerced into doing so.

            More insulted than he cared to admit to hear his favorite program being compared to one of the more stuffier shows that the History Channel had to offer, yet in far too good a mood to take the fact that he was decades older than his agents out on Kate, Gibbs simply sighed loudly before running a hand down his face.

            “This is the _Lone Ranger_ , Kate.” Gibbs corrected, struggling to keep the outrage out of his voice.

            “Oh, is that one of Tony’s classic movies?” Kate investigated, plopping herself down unto the carpet by Gibb’s legs.           

            Grateful that the knee she had bumped against upon her descent had not been his _bad_ knee, as such was being particularly troublesome that morning due to the overcast weather, Gibbs responded more kindly to the thinly-veiled insinuation that his favorite television show was old enough to be considered a classic then he otherwise might have.

            “Don’t tell me that you’ve never heard of the Lone Ranger, you two.” Gibbs sighed, almost pleading.

            “I don’t want to lie to you, Gibbs.” Tim somberly stated, hazel eyes gone with the very thought.

            Beginning to wonder just what the hell he had done in the past few months to make it so that Tim was even more afraid of his wroth than was the formerly-abused Jimmy, Gibbs racked his brain for an answer and only became all the more frustrated when his attempts yielded no useful results other that the silent promise he made to himself to help his agent get over such misplaced fears.

            “This is show isn’t so old that you two wouldn’t have seen at least an episode or two growing up.” Gibbs asserted, not entirely as sure of that assumption as he might have liked.

            “Was it on with I Love Lucy?” Kate excitedly questioned. “I used to watch those with my Grandma all the time.”

            Starting to feel quite ancient with each of the following commentary that came out of Kate’s mouth, Gibbs shook his head and only narrowly avoided rolling his eyes in a display of self-pity.

            “It came out a few years before then.” Gibbs clarified, outright refusing to specifying how many.

            “How many?” Kate pressed, very much like a dog with a bone when it came to learning new trivia.

            “… _Ten_.” Gibbs sighed, practically feeling his bones beginning to turn into dust.

            Taking a brief moment to process that little tidbit of information, Kate pursed her lips in that endearing manner she got whenever she pondered something particularly difficult or interest, and then promptly ruined the endearing manner of such by blurting out the first thing that popped into her mind in regards to the news Gibbs had just graced her with.

            “So, it came out in the twenties?”       

            Feeling his jaw literally drop at such a ridiculous estimation, Gibbs felt himself struggle to come up with a clever retort and only became all the more flustered in such an attempt as both Ducky _and_ Tony dissolved into a fit of unsynchronized giggles at the exact same time Jimmy shoved a fist into his mouth to refrain from doing the exact same thing while within striking distance of Gibbs.

            “Kate,” Tim interjected, timidly asserting himself into the conversation, “Nobody had televisions in the twenties. It wasn’t until the 50s that most people got one.”

            Having never before been so grateful in all his life that Tim was such an unfaltering technology buff, and kind-hearted to a fault, as well, Gibbs felt himself relaxing now that the ridiculous assumption of his favorite television show being ancient in nature was out of Kate’s head.

            “It could have started as a radio thing.” Kate persisted, entirely unwilling to let the matter rest. “Like Abbot and Castello.”

            Using up every last ounce of restraint to refrain from launching one of the decorative couch cushions at Ducky’s head as the Scottish man doubled over in laughter at the nearby kitchen table, Gibbs finally gave into the urge to roll his eyes and shook his head.

            “If you’re finished making me feel old, Kate, Tony and I would like to finish the show.”

             Pretty pink blush rising up into her cheeks as she seemed to finally realize her faux-paus, Kate turned her head and grimaced apologetically at him before applying yet another question to his person.

            “Can we watch, too?”  

             Despite being of the opinion that Tim would likely be far more comfortable doing something _else_ with his fellow agents, particularly something that didn’t involve such a close proximity with his boss, Gibbs felt as if he couldn’t mercifully send the boy away with some fake excuse without severely hurting his feelings as a result and, as such, he could do nothing but extend the offer to the both of them with as much genuine sincerity as he could muster without being phony.

            “Of course.” He allowed. “Sit down, Tim.” He then directed, slapping Tony’s thigh in order to get him to move his legs a bit.

            Looking very much like a death-row inmate approaching the gallows, Tim slowly, and stiffly, took a seat on the cushion allotted to him, practically pushing himself up against the armrest to avoid getting any nearer to Gibbs than he had to. And though that hurt, prodigiously, beyond his ability to express, Gibbs nonetheless refrained from remarking on such a choice and opted, instead, to simply unmute the television in the hopes that the diverting program would be enough to distract Tim from his nervousness.

            “What’s the horses name?” Kate happily demanded, watching in rapture as the Lone Ranger’s faithful steed burst onto the screen.

            “Silver.” Gibbs confirmed, slapping Jimmy’s toes out of his face.

            “Because he’s supposed to be gray?” Kate wondered aloud, blue eyes never once leaving the horse.

            While just a few months ago, pre-anger-management him would have snapped at his agent for asking such a stupid question, without even taking the time to think of what words were about to leave his mouth, much less consider whether it really was all that stupid after all, the work-in-progress Gibbs approached the question at hand with far more tact.

            “Probably.” He allowed.

            Satisfied enough with that little morsel of information for the following three minutes, Kate remained blissfully silent and kept her eyes on the screen as Silver heroically jumped over five outlaws without sustaining even a single injury. It wasn’t until Tonto entered into the picture, in a blaze of a glory to rescue a damsel in distress, did she pervade the silence with her voice once more.

            “Who’s that Indian?”

            “ _Native American_ , Kate.” Gibbs corrected. “And his name is Tonto.”

             “Who’s the guy riding next to him?” Kate continued, ignoring Tony’s pointed turning up of the volume.

            Hastily snatching the television remote out of Tony’s hand before any noise complaints could be called into the front desk against them, Gibbs slapped his child’s thigh before tucking the appliance out of his reach near Jimmy.

            “That’s the Lone Ranger, Kate.”

              “What’s his real name?” She pestered, the look on her face clearly showing that she thought but little of such a nickname.

            Despite feeling as protectively of the Lone Ranger as Tony did of Batman, Gibbs maturely refrained from entering into an impassioned argument on what constituted a good nickname for the sake of preserving the peace.

            “Nobody knows.” Gibbs clarified.

             “What an edge-lord.” Kate scoffed, grunting softly as Tony bonked her in the back of the head with his knee.

            Magnanimously allowing Kate to get in an revenge blow via a well-placed elbow in Tony’s sternum before stepping in and putting an end to their non-verbal bickering with one of his patented level-10 glares, Gibbs sighed softly from the back of his throat and felt, one more, that he really was becoming quite old as he had absolutely no idea, some days, as to what the definition behind the slang words his agents used was.

            “What the hell is an edge-lord, Kate?” Gibbs demanded, never one to enjoy being in the dark.

            Never once tearing her eyes away from the screen, as Silver had once against made a grand appearance, Kate shrugged her shoulders and gave him only the most cursory of definitions.

            “It’s, like, someone who is overdramatic and tries too hard to be mysterious and cool.”

            Not even having time to process that new information before Tony was jumping on Kate’s back to avenge the integrity of his father’s favorite character, Gibbs was promptly thrown into parenting mode once again as his son stretched down and tugged at a strand of Kate’s loose hair – provoking Kate, in turn, to stretch an arm back and scratch Tony on the chin with one of her fingernails. Unfortunately provoking Gibbs into, once more, glaring daggers at them until they settled back down.

            “The Lone Ranger is not an edge-lord.” Tony argued. “ _Loki_ is.”

            “He is _not_.” Kate indignantly squawked, offended beyond belief. “ _Batman_ is.”

            “Well, you’d be edgy too if you were orphaned!” Tony countered.

            “And _you’d_ be edgy, too, if _your_ adoptive father murdered your original family and decided not to tell you that you were a whole different race altogether until it was time to pass down his crown!”

            Having no real idea as to what any aspect of their current argument was about, and thusly unable to deliver an edict on such, Gibbs shook his head and reluctantly tried to formulate at least a vague idea as to what the nature of the dispute was about.

            “What the hell are you two squabbling about _now_?” He sighed.

            The both them clearly far too embarrassed to willingly make a confession themselves, as no doubt they now realized their argument was very stupid, indeed, after being forced to think it over, Gibbs turned to Tim and quirked an inquisitive eyebrow.

            “Marvel.” The technology expert unhelpfully clarified.

            “What the fuck is a Marvel.” Gibbs interrogated.

             Receiving four rather weary, and embarrassed, expressions from his underlings in response to his question, their likes very much akin to the time he had asked Kelly just what a Cabbage Patch Kid was, Gibbs felt his age once more and wondered, casually, if repeated incidences such of these were why some men went through midlife crises.

             “It’s the most famous superhero movie franchise.” Jimmy clarified.

            “You mean like all those Batman movies Tony dragged me to?”

            “Exactly.” Jimmy confirmed.

            Feeling he was beginning to get somewhat of a grasp on the topic at hand, much to his great relief, Gibbs felt confident enough to interject himself into the conversation with something more than just a clarifying question.

            “Who’s that dumbass with the magic cape?”

            “Doctor Strange.” Tim immediately supplied.

             “Well, doctor or not, _he’s_ the edge-lord.” Gibbs announced, putting an end to the argument between Tony and Kate as he gave them both something they could agree upon.

            Pleased as his victory in the manner was made all the clearer via the giggles of agreement filling the room, Gibbs didn’t even upend Jimmy off the back of the couch for daring to steal a sip of his coffee.

            “Gibbs?” Kate tentatively asked, apparently intending to take full advantage of his recently restored good mood.

            “Yeah?” He grunted, yanking his mug of coffee from Jimmy’s hands.

            “Can we go see a movie tonight?”

            Seeing as how Tony had already asked him half-a-hundred times since arrival if they could all go and check out the luxury-theatre just a few blocks away, and seeing as how he had no real inclination to miss out on something so fun himself, Gibbs was more than happy to voice his agreement to the plan even _before_ Tony and Kate leveled puppy-dog eyes at him.

            “Yeah sure. Why not?” He agreed, earning for himself four very big smiles. “ _But_ – we’re drawing names to see who gets to pick the movie out.”   
 


	10. Chapter 10

Still riding high on the great success of having been granted the privilege of picking out that nights movie, on no other virtue than having had the sheer luck of getting his name drawn out of a hotel-provided Styrofoam cup, Tony was all grins as he and his work family ambled their way down the well-maintained sidewalk towards the luxury-theatre located just a few blocks away. Because even though he had started out the short journey in an exceedingly bad mood with Gibbs after said man had coerced him into wearing one of his thicker bedtime diapers for the whole affair, based on nothing more than the ridiculous assumption that he was soak right through one of the thinner daytime varieties with all the pop he would be drinking, he found that he just couldn’t hold onto such a grudge when the night ahead seemed so promising – even _if_  his jeans were currently more than just a little snug at the moment.

            “Do we know what _La Moisson_ is going to be about?” Kate questioned, batting a swarm of blood-thirsty mosquitoes out of her face as she turned to glance back at him.

            Unable to answer her question with even the slightest semblance of confidence, as the title was vague enough to confound even the most astute of persons, Tony shrugged his shoulders and earned for himself a heatless eyeroll from his female friend.

            “Gibbs says it’s French for The Harvest.” Jimmy offered up, his answer only slightly more helpful.

            Still quite salty about not receiving the opportunity to pick out that evening’s movie, as she had been greatly pressing for one of a more romantic nature, Kate scrunched up her nose and sighed as loudly as possible.

            “So, for all we know, we’re about to go and pay twenty dollars to watch two impoverished Frenchmen pick grapes for wine?”  

            Given that his long-deceased mother had been the one to introduce him to classic movies, and foster his interest in them as well, Tony took it quite personally that Kate seemed to harbor such a massive hate-boner for them, as it almost felt, at times, that by doing so she was directly disparaging his mother’s personality.

            “Don’t be so uncultured, Kate.” Tony scolded. “French cinematography is some of the best in the world.”

            “Well, I hope _this_ movie has subtitles.” Kate countered. “Because it’ll be hard to enjoy a movie I can’t understand.”

            “You could always use nonverbal context clues.” Tony condescendingly suggested, making sure to use that macho-gruff voice that she hated so much.

            Instantly bristling as soon as the first notes of that voice hit her ears, as he knew she would, Kate’s face flamed a brilliant shade of red even as her blue eyes took on a deadly glare.

            “I have a nonverbal context clue for you _right_ here.” Kate snapped, raising her arm to flip him off with a graceful flourish. “Can you understand what I’m saying?”

            Never one to back down from an argument, no matter _how_ silly or harmless it truly was, Tony took but a second to process the surprise that _Kate_ , of all people, had flipped him off before moving to up the ante by flipping twice as many birds at her. Only, before he could even move his arms, much less raise his fingers, Ducky had succinctly reminded him of why that would be a very bad idea. For forever the obscenity-hating disciplinarian, no matter at work or not, Ducky had yanked up a strip of bamboo from a decorative display the city had lined the sidewalks with and brought said implement down, hard, on upon Kate’s backside just as soon as her vulgar finger had made its presence known.

            “I recommend you remove that pout from you face, Caitlyn, lest I chose to bless you with another smack.”

            Having never enjoyed the way in which Ducky opted to refer to his doling out of physical rebukes as blessings, and likewise feeling a great deal of sympathy towards his friend, Tony frowned in a show of solidarity but was careful enough to make certain that Ducky didn’t see such a churlish expression. Unfortunately for Kate, however, _she_ made the great mistake of rolling her eyes before was absolutely assured of the fact that the Medical Examiner could no longer see her face.

            _Crack!_

            “Ow!” Kate cried, hands instantly flying back to protect her rear. “Fuck!” 

            “Are we really persisting with such poor behavior?” Ducky tutted, clearly unamused as he tapped at her hands with the strand of bamboo.   

             Knowing better than to outright refuse his nonverbal request to move her hands, as Jimmy had done so exactly once and had relayed the horror story that had followed to them all, Kate grimaced dolefully but nonetheless brought her hands up to the top of her head and braced herself as Ducky landed a final stripe on her sore backside.  

             “Now, let us have no more of such appalling behavior.” Ducky encouraged, throwing the bamboo stick aside into yet another display of the same kind.

             Clever enough not to doubt that Ducky would not hesitate to seize up the strand of bamboo again, or perhaps even something far harder, Kate nodded exceedingly meekly before allowing herself to fall behind and join Tony and Gibbs at the back of the small group, her skinny hands never once resting as she worked to rub away the soreness in her bottom at the same time her eyes dripped a suspicious amount of moisture.

            “You’re breaking my heart.” Gibbs dryly remarked, giving the top her head a small pat.

            Knowing, himself, just how hard Ducky could swing, as said man had made _him_ quite sore more times than he could count, even despite the new protection his thickest of diapers had to offer, Tony refrained from teasing Kate about being a crybaby and sent her yet another sympathetic frown.

            “It _stings_.” Kate whined, whispering so as to avoid being overheard by Ducky.

            “It was only three.” Gibbs reassured. “You’ll survive.”         

            “Hopefully.” Tony teased, hoping to coax a smile unto her face. “Because we have tickets for Lady Gaga next – “

            Feeling the breath suddenly leave his body as gravity overtook his person and brought him down into the dirt, _hard_ , Tony blinked stupidly, in a daze, and lay flat for several seconds until the sharp pain in his right wrist startled him out of his stupor and prompted him to sit up. It was then, and only then, that he caught sight of the villainous walnut that had done him so dirty lying only a few inches away.

            “For God’s sake,” Gibbs grunted, kneeling on the road in front of him, “I’m going to start wrapping you up in bubble-wrap.”               

            Feeling more than just a little ornery due to the sharp pain currently violating his wrist, Tony scowled up at his father and practically growled out his answer.

            “I didn’t trip on purpose.”

             Thankfully familiar enough with Tony by that point to realize that if he was being surly, he _had_ to be hurt, Gibbs didn’t headslap him into oblivion for such sass.

            “What hurts?” Gibbs interrogated.

            “My wrist.” Tony mumbled, more than just a little self-conscious as everyone crowded around him. “I fell on it weird.”                              

             Grabbing his hand as gingerly as possible, to the point where Tony experienced no additional pain, Gibbs brought the damaged part up to his eyes for careful examination.

            “Can you bend your fingers?”

            Making his own investigation into the matter, Tony carefully curled his fingers and tried not to grimace too badly as a shock of pain travelled up his arm.

            “Duck?” Gibbs asked, looking to his friend for a professional opinion.

            Clamping down hard on his tongue to keep from yelping as the older man tenderly took his hand into his own, and ran his wrinkled fingers every square inch of the fingers, Tony felt his breathing turn shallow and felt on the verge of a panic attack until Gibbs placed a comforting, and grounding, hand on his shoulder.

            “Well, it doesn’t _appear_ broken.” Ducky diagnosed. “But appearances can be deceiving. I suggest we simply keep an eye on the wrist and keep a watch for swelling.”

            Feeling more than just a little relieved to hear that his wrist wasn’t likely very broken, as he hated almost nothing more than desk-duty, Tony felt his posture relax even though his entire hand did, in fact, hurt like hell.

            “You’re a disaster.” Gibbs sighed, helping Tony climb to his feet. “What am I going to do with you?”

             Even though he knew, instinctively, that Gibbs did not really mean he was an actual disaster, Tony still felt the word as a blow given that Senior was very found of accusing him of the same such character flaw.

            “Duck,” Gibbs sighed, thankfully sensing his mistake, “Why don’t you take everyone on ahead? We’ll catch up.”

            Never one to deny a friend such a very reasonable request, Ducky gladly took the onus of shepherding the agents, and Jimmy, away from the scene of the crime.

            “I didn’t fall on purpose.” Tony heartily asserted, once everyone was out of earshot.

              “I know you didn’t.” Gibbs confirmed, rubbing his back. “It was just an accident, is all.”

            “Then why did you yell at me?” Tony demanded, still clutching his sore wrist as it throbbed and throbbed.

            “I wasn’t yelling at you.” Gibbs heartily asserted. “Why are you being so fussy?”  

            Needing to take several deep breaths to keep from snapping at Gibbs that he was being no such thing, as it really wasn’t fair at all for him to be taking out his aches on his father, Tony frowned and shook his head before making his confession.

            “My wrist hurts is all.”        

            “Did you want to head home?” Gibbs asked, looking very concerned.

            Thinking that there was no force on earth that could ever keep him away from a classic film, especially one of a foreign persuasion, Tony immediately shook his head and made a great show of lowering his arm back down to his side despite the agony that such an action caused him.

            “It doesn’t hurt that badly.” Tony asserted, hoping that his father wouldn’t call him out for lying.

            Graciously allowing Tony to make the call as to whether or not he returned back to the hotel to convalesce, as it was not often he allowed anyone other than himself to make such a call, Gibbs sighed but nonetheless smoothed down his hair in a gesture of affection.

            “Would a kiss make it feel better?”

             Actually enjoying to be babied from time to time, at least by Gibbs, Tony nodded meekly and surrendered his hand into his father’s grasp.

            “There.” Gibbs grumbled, pecking the fingers. “Better now?”

             “Much.” Tony confessed, smiling widely.

            “C’mon then.” Gibbs encouraged, throwing a hand over his shoulder. “Let’s go catch up with everyone else.”

             “Help me keep an eye out for walnuts.” Tony requested, moving far more slowly than was his usual wont.

             “I think it would be easier to just get you a stroller, but alright.” Gibbs allowed.

             


	11. Chapter 11

            Having only fallen five or ten minutes behind the rest of the team as he tended to Tony’s wounded wrist and hurt feelings, Gibbs was more than just a little surprised to make his way up to the theatre, and its adjoined ticket booth, to find quite the kerfuffle taking place between his newest agent and the elderly woman manning said booth. Because not only had he believed the amount of time he was away from his work-family to be of a negligible nature, as not even _Tony_ could get himself into trouble in so little time, so too was it the meek and ever well-behaved _Tim_ that seemed to be the source of all the trouble. And that concerned him greatly, as there could only be some major problem occurring if Tim was beginning to lose patience. Which he very clearly was, given the way in which his normally-pale face was now flushed a very soft pink as he argued, or rather spoke firmly, to the woman in charge of doling out tickets.         

            “What’s going on here?” Gibbs growled, more towards the lady than Tim.

            Paling quite considerably as he mistakenly took the gruff tone to be meant for him, Tim quickly became flustered and almost tripped over himself in his great haste to back away from him toward the general safety of Ducky.

            “This young man is trying to get into an R-rated movie while underaged.” The priggish saleslady sniffed, casting Tim a very dirty look. “And I’m going to have to call the authorities if he persists in arguing with me.”                                        

            “But I keep telling you,” Tim earnestly insisted, still polite yet firm, “I _am_ of age.”

            Feeling quite badly for the baby-faced agent as his embarrassment became all the more keener upon having his boss witness him being treated like a particularly ill-behaved Freshman, Gibbs shot the technology-enthusiast a sympathetic expression before turning back to deal with the unyieldingly stubborn curmudgeon intent on yielding what little authority she had with an iron fist.

            “Tim is old enough to get it.” He firmly stated, locking his eyes unto her own grey and cataracted version.

            Glancing away from him to peer shrewdly at Tim with her thick-rimmed, coke-bottle, glasses, the beehive-wearing woman sniffed primly once more and shook her head.

            “I don’t think so.” She condescendingly dismissed. “It looks to me as if he could still be a Sophomore.”

            Completely at his wits end with such a ridiculous argument, as all Tim wanted to do was watch a movie, goddammit, Gibbs felt himself losing his temper and very nearly chewed the obstinate woman out before remembering his breathing exercises and opting for a less hostile method of negotiation.

            “Tim is old enough to watch this move.” Gibbs growled. “He’s a federal agent, for God’s sake.”

            “ _I_ don’t know that.” The ticket-seller sniffed, refusing to budge on the matter.

            “Look,” Gibbs growled, feeling his blood-pressure beginning to rise, “Even _if_ he was underaged, the sign clearly says he can watch the movie if escorted by another adult.”      

            And, just in case the gray-haired woman was every bit just as stupid as she was stubborn, Gibbs gestured quite pointedly at all the other adults in his work-family surrounding him.

            “A _related_ adult.” The curmudgeon corrected, pointing her pen at the sign.

            “Well,” Gibbs snapped, “Here I am.”

            Narrowing her heavily-cataracted eyes at him in a fashion that very clearly conveyed that she saw but little facial similarities between the two of them, if at all anything other than a few blurs of colors and certain shapes, the heavily-wrinkled woman pursed her thin lips but nonetheless sighed loudly after a good thirty seconds of contemplating the matter inside her head.

            “Alright,” She huffily conceded, “But I’m chagrining him as an adult.”

            “As you should.” Gibbs snapped, all but throwing his money at her.

            And, still far too angry with the woman to wait for his change, Gibbs left the ticket booth behind without even a second-glance as he made his way into the building and headed towards the concession stand to await the rest of his team.

             “Do I _really_ look that young?” Tim whined, leading the rest of them in a few moments later.

            Unfortunately too preoccupied with the task of ordering his own concessions to reassure his agent that he wasn’t _too_ youthful looking in appearances, at least not to anyone with functional eyes, Gibbs had no other choice but to allow his other team members to provide the needed comfort.

            “You do kind of have a baby face.” Kate sheepishly confessed. “But that’ll come in handy when you’re fifty and only look thirty.”       

            “I should just staple my ID onto my head at this point.” Tim groused. “At least that – “

            Interrupted from whatever he was about to say as his turn in line came up and the salesman badgered him for his order, without any semblance at all of patience, Tim blushed softly and quietly went about ordering only a small popcorn for himself – effectively surprising the hell out of Gibbs as such a decision was more along the lines of something _Ducky_ would order rather than Tim. But, rather than call the easily-embarrassed young man out in front of everyone for such an out-of-character decision, Gibbs instead grabbed him beneath the elbow and covertly steered the both of them over toward an empty bench several feet away. And even though Tim looked longingly at the exit as he trudged along, clearly wishing for an escape from whatever was about to happen, he nonetheless remained as docile as a sloth as his boss pushed him down unto the bench and took a seat beside him.

             “Alright, Tim, spill.” Gibbs directed. “What’s been going on with you lately? It’s like you think I’m going to strike you at any moment of something.”

            Obviously hesitating to answer the question, as he clearly thought it was some sort of trap, Tim began to chew frenetically on his bottom lip, to the point where it soon began to bleed, before likewise occupying his hands with the removal of non-existent threads from his shirt. And while Gibbs wanted nothing more than to put his clearly anxious agent at ease, as Tim looked all but ready to physically explode at any moment, he was woefully unable to go about doing so with any real confidence, as Tim was still too new, and afraid of him, for Gibbs to have learned what methods of comfort worked with the young man.        

            “Why are you so afraid of me lately?” Gibbs calmly inquired, going for broke as he laid a gentle laid on the nervous man’s knee. “Was it something I did?”

            Because even though Gibbs hadn’t headslapped any of his agents in ages, apart from Tony after said young man had thought it would be clever to prank him with salt in his coffee, he felt as if there could be no other explanation for Tim acting so squirrelly apart from him having actually done something to inspire such blatant fear in the technology-enthusiast. And, if he had any hope at all of his team working as a functional unit, he needed to know what it was he had done so he could refrain from doing so and work on fostering some between himself and Tim.

            “I just…I don’t want to be fired, is all.” Tim mumbled, nearly inaudible as he stared stubbornly down at his shoes.

            “What?” Gibbs scoffed, completely taken aback.

            Mistaking the vehemence of Gibbs’s disbelief for genuine anger, Tim actually flinched and looked, once more, toward the exit just a few feet away from him, clearly desperate in his bid to be away from the situation and his boss as well.

            “Abby…Abby told me I was on the chopping block a few weeks ago.”

            Although he was extraordinarily furious with Abby upon learning that little tidbit of information, as that level of manipulation was on a whole different level than she usually operated on, Gibbs could not say that he was genuinely surprised, as just last month Abby had been prodigiously angry with Tim for him having decided to go out on a date an apparently offensive nine months after they had already broken up.

             “Tim, why would you be on the chopping block?” Gibbs asked, the question more rhetorical than it was genuine.

             Because as annoyed as he admittedly became whenever Tim began to spout off about such random technological feat or product had happened to catch his attention, and as frustrated as he occasionally became with said man’s inability to assert himself at times, Gibbs had no intentions, whatsoever, of removing him from the team.

            “Because I’m too fat to keep up.” Tim mumbled, chubby cheeks flushing pink.

            Now one-hundred percent worried that he was going to have to keep a watch out for a potential eating-disorder being developed in one of his agents, as looking back it now seemed as if Tim had been eating suspiciously less and less, Gibbs groaned inwardly and wondered, to himself, why it was that things could never be easy.

            “That’s not true, Tim.” Gibbs hastily assured. “It wasn’t true fifteen pounds ago and it isn’t now. And I’m sorry if Abby made you feel that way.”

            And it was no mere gesture of sympathy either, as Gibbs really did feel genuinely bad for his plump young agent that Abby had so shamelessly used his greatest insecurity against him.

            “I just don’t want to be fired.” Tim confessed, finally looking away from his shoes to look him in the eyes. “I really like this job.”  

            “And I really like you as an agent.” Gibbs insisted. “You wouldn’t be a part of this team if I didn’t. And, if you don’t believe me, you go and ask Tony all about Backadder.”

             “Who?” Tim asked, understandably very confused.

            “ _Exactly.”_ Gibbs smirked, climbing to his feet before gesturing for Tim to do the same. “Now, c’mon, lets go get you a pop before we find out seats.”

             Despite looking as if he would rather drink liquified dirt before downing such unnecessary liquid calories, Tim pliantly allowed himself to be guided back to the concession stand line, his sheer relief at being told he wasn’t about to be canned overweighing, for the time being, his sudden preoccupation with weight.

            “You’re really not going to get rid of me?” Tim asked, needing one last confirmation.

            “Of course not.” Gibbs promised, looking him straight in the eye. “I promise.”

           

             


	12. Chapter 12

            After having watched at least two to three hundred classical and/or foreign films with his son throughout the length of their long relationship, to the point where he could quote quite a few of them himself, Gibbs could have sworn that no other movie, apart from _Schindler’s List_ could ever evoke such raw hatred in a villain for him. At least, he _had_ , up until the point _The Harvest_ hit the halfway mark and began to shamelessly traumatize its audience with a gratuitous amount of sexual violence showcased by the chain-smoking protagonist holding a woman at gunpoint in order to coerce her into giving him fellatio in front of her clearly traumatized child. But before Gibbs could even intervene in the situation, and quietly suggest to them all that it was time to leave, as not only had Tim gone an interesting shade of green but so too had Kate turned quite pale, the movie took a turn for the much darker side and culminated with the hairy protagonist blowing his victim’s brains out as he ‘finished.’ And, rather than stay to ascertain what the fate of the young child would be, Gibbs rose to his feet, despite the signs that made it very clear that such an act was not allowed, and grabbed the clearly hyperventilating Kate by the shoulder before leading her out of the crowded theatre. A feat much easier said than done as, clearly in the throes of a full-fledged PTSD flashback, Kate clung tightly to his forearm and dug her fingernails into the soft flesh of such all while planting her feet and refusing to move until, in a fit of desperation, Gibbs went for broke and hefted her up over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Which, thankfully, was about all she weighed, as it made getting her into the general safety of the lobby of the theatre far easier and less complicated than it might have been had he needed to lug any of his male agents out.

            “Kate,” Gibbs coaxed, gently lowering her down unto the same bench he had earlier spoken to Tim on, “ _Look at me_.”

            Pale blue eyes already as wide as saucers, and her whole body trembling greatly, Kate shook her head frantically in panicked denial of his simple request and began to breathe with concerning amounts of rapid and short breaths that greatly resembled the liked of a full-fledged panic attack. And, having endured multiple incidences of Tony experiencing a similar psychological breakdown whenever faced with the prospect of the dreaded doctor’s visit, or worse yet the dentist, Gibbs responded to Kate’s hyperventilation in the same fashion he would with Tony and gently grabbed her chin before forcing her head towards his.

            “Kate,” He repeated, keeping his voice steady, “ _Look at me.”_

            Several minutes elapsing before the words finally seemed to register within her traumatized brain, Kate hyperventilated and shuddered violently until, at last, her glassy blue eyes finally locked unto his own.

            “Gibbs?” She breathed, her voice as jagged an icicle. “ _Gibbs?!”_

            Pointedly ignoring all the looks they received from nosy onlookers as Kate’s voice took on a shriller tone, Gibbs kept his eyes locked unto his agent’s and increased the pressure of his hold on her face, hoping against hope that the firmness of such touch would somehow serve to ground her in the same manner it usually did for Tony.

            “It’s alright, Kate.” Gibbs calmly insisted. “You’re here, _with me_ , and your safe. You just had a little scare, that’s all. Everything is alright. You just need to _breathe_. Can you do that for me?”

            Seeming to gradually become calmer the more that Gibbs prattled on, in an endearing manner very similar to Tony, Kate slowly began to make efforts into regulating her breathing and gradually, bit by bit, lessened her painful death-grip on his forearm.

            “Attagirl.” Gibbs softly encouraged, slowly lowering his hands away from her face. “Just keep breathing. In and out – just like that.”

            Pliantly doing as she was bid, Kate concentrated all her focus unto her breathing and, eventually, began to subconsciously mirror his own as her full-fledged panic attack slowly dwindled down into a much more manageable level of anxiety and discomfort.

            “We’re…We’re at the movies.” Kate croaked, a suspicious amount of moisture creeping into her eyes even as she slumped over from sheer relief. “We…It’s fine.” She babbled, one trembling hand reaching up to subconsciously touch her chest scar. “It was just a movie, that’s all.”

            “Yeah,” Gibbs agreed, lying an anchoring hand on trembling shoulder, “It was just a movie, nothing more. You’re safe.”

            Almost instantly aware of the way in which her bottom lip trembled dangerously in response to such a relieving affirmation, yet woefully unequipped to prevent the natural follow up of such a basic biological instinct, Gibbs remained awkwardly rooted to his seat as his formerly traumatized agent dissolved into a fit of unconstrained tears – the raw feeling and vehemence of such almost enough to break his stony heart into half-a-million pieces. Because even though Gibbs could offer her up all the PTO she needed to attend her therapy sessions, and provide her all the assurances she required that he didn’t hold her lengthy recuperation time against her, he was still utterly, and painfully, unable to undue any of the horrible things that had happened to her in the past year. And that simply aggravated him to no end, as he loathed nothing more than to feel so helpless. But, rather than waste any time by reflecting upon such very unwelcome feelings, Gibbs allowed his paternal instincts to kick in and gave in to the strong urge to wrap his sobbing agent in one of his tightest bearhugs.

             “Let it all out.” Gibbs murmured, smoothing down her silky hair. “I’m in no hurry.”

            Apparently, and understandably, taking that as tactic permission to stop holding back with whatever little constraint she had managed to cling unto, Kate sucked in one shuddering and heart-piercing breath before completely dissolving into a flurry of emotion while in his arms. And even though she was creating quite a scene, and even though she had soaked his shirt through to the skin in seconds, he made no move to extract himself from the embrace, knowing that her comfort was far more important than his own at the moment.

            “I’m – I’m sorry.” Kate sniffled, crying much too hard to be intelligible.

            “Don’t be sorry.” Gibbs encouraged, making use of one of his usual phrases. “I understand.”

            And, in truth, even _if_ he didn’t outright understand the trauma that accompanied being shot point-black in the chest, without warning, he _did_ understand the affect-effects of trauma given that he had lost both his wife and daughter while away in Afghanistan.

            “It’s just…He looked like…Haswari.” Kate spluttered, red-eyed and red-faced.

            “I know.” Gibbs soothed. “I know. But Haswari is dead now. And you’re _not_.”

            Nodding tearfully in full agreement with his very accurate statement, as she had been told by him, in very explicit and honest terms, that Gibbs had blown her shooter’s brains out one foggy morning while she was still healing in the hospital, Kate swiped impatiently at her dripping eyeballs with the back of hands before swiping at her reddened nose with the hem of her shirt – provoking from Gibbs a very disgusted groan before he slapped her hand away and thrusted a paper napkin into her no-longer trembling hand.

            “Thanks.” Kate mumbled, dabbing gently at her nose with the coarse material.

            Clearly becoming all the more flustered and embarrassed all the more she recovered from her little PTSD episode, as it was understandably quite awkward to come back into reality and find yourself receiving a full-fledged bearhug from your workplace superior when such an event had never happened before, Kate’s cheeks flushed a soft pink as she gently extracted herself from the embrace as quickly as she could without being rude or hurtful about it.

             “I’ll wash your shirt when we get back to the hotel.” She promised, now unable to meet his eyes whereas moments before she had been glued unto them.

            Thinking that he had forced to deal with far grosser materials on his clothing than snot, given that he had once been a parent to an infant and a combat-soldier as well, Gibbs simply rolled his eyes before passing his weepy agent yet another napkin with which to tackle the mascara streaks currently running down her face.

            “It’s just a shirt, Kate. Don’t worry about.” Gibbs promptly dismissed.

            Nodding to show that she understood perfectly well that his suggestion had been an order, and not at all anything even remotely optional, Kate sniffled loudly once more before swiping aggressively at her blackened cheeks all while staring longingly towards the exit and the freedom it represented.

            “Do you want to go and wait out in the van until the movie is over?” Gibbs asked, giving the distraught young woman the out she so clearly needed.

            Youthful face almost instantly flooding with relief the very moment permission to leave the scene of her meltdown had been given, Kate gave him an uncomfortably thankful expression before stretching out one of her slender hands for the keys to the van.

            “Then let’s go.” Gibbs directed, rising to his feet and directing her to do the same.

             An almost comical look of surprise coming across her features as she realized that Gibbs fully intended to accompany her on her short journey to the car, as she had clearly mistakenly believed that she was about to be banished, on her own, to the van for the next half hour or so, Kate frowned in abject confusion and shook her head before finally managing to remember that she had the full ability to speak.

            “Gibbs,” Kate protested, starting to look more than just a little overwhelmed, “You don’t have to stay with me. _Really_. I’ll be just fine on my own for another fifteen minutes or so.”

            Knowing better than to leave a very distraught individual alone, especially after said person had just experienced a full-fledged panic attack, as such negligent actions could only lean to an immediate relapse and follow-up anxiety fit, Gibbs shook his head and gave his bewildered agent a stern, yet calm, look.

            “You’re upset, Kate.” Gibbs confidently diagnosed. “I’m not leaving you alone.”

 Clearly far too embarrassed at the prospect of her boss seeing her in so vulnerable a position, despite having just spent a good ten minutes bawling into his shoulder, Kate shook her head in frantic denial and began clutching at straws to avoid spending the next half hour or so in close proximity to his employer.

“Gibbs, you paid _thirty_ dollars – “

“Kate,” Gibbs patiently interrupted, “Do you have _any_ idea about how much money I spent on gas, alone, while visiting Tony every day in the hospital when he had the plague?”

 And though it was, indeed, a rhetorical question he had just asked off his agent, the answer to that question was of such an embarrassing proportion that Gibbs outright refused to elaborate any further on such a matter. As not only had he put a ridiculous amount of mileage into his truck for such an ordeal, to the point where he had been forced to change his tires well before he normally would have needed to, so too had his gas expense almost doubled during that hellishly long month in which Tony was confined to the hospital.

“But…that’s different.” Kate persistent, sound less and less confident the more their heatless debate waged on.

“ _How?”_ Gibbs challenged. “You’re one of my agents, too, aren’t you?”

“Well, yeah.” Kate allowed, starting to sound flustered. “But he’s your _child_.”  

Seeing as Gibbs had not only claimed the movie-buff for his own after only a mere few months of said man having come under his employ, but had likewise made such a familial bond perfectly official by legally adopting his SFA just a few years ago, he was perfectly happy to find himself unable to refute such an assertion from his agent. That did not mean, however, that he was simply going to let Kate go on thinking that she was not just as equally as entitled to his attentions and focus as any other member of his team was.

“Tony being my kid only means that he gets _more_ attention,” Gibbs stipulated, not embarrassed at all about the fact that he babied his lead agent, “Not that you and Tim get _less_ of it.”

Looking as if that very thought had never once entered her head during her time on the team, Kate furrowed her perfectly-groomed brows and seemed to ponder, for an insultingly long time, before finally making an abrupt return to the conversation at hand.

“I don’t want to ruin your night, Gibbs.” Kate insisted, stubbornly refusing to back down from her clear desire to not be seen as a nuisance.

But whether or not that little facet of her personality stemmed forth from her narcissist parents putting all their unconditional love towards her three older brothers while simultaneously making their daughters earn it, or from some subconscious things Gibbs had unknowingly said or did to her before he had begun therapy, he could not say. He could, he realized, only work on putting such ridiculous notions out of her head bit by bit.

“Kate,” Gibbs sighed, “I’m going to be blunt with you. I _really_ don’t fucking want to watch people getting shot in the face either, alright?”

Because not only had he had more than his full-share of watching people get shot while he was still active in the Marines, so too was he still more than just a little traumatized after watching _Kate_ get shot without any warning. As, even though she wasn’t his daughter, he still did care greatly for in a sort of uncle-like capacity.

“Are you sure?” Kate fussed, clearly still believing herself to be a bother.

“Positive.” Gibbs promptly confirmed. “Now c’mon. We might still be able to catch the end of the game on the radio.”

Not, of course, that he would ever persist on listening to such a program should Kate prefer something of a more calming nature.

“Can I have the front seat?” Kate pleaded. “At least until Ducky gets back?”

“Sure, kid. Whatever you want.” Gibbs charitably allowed, leading her toward the exit.

Feeling as if he had done his duty as not only a boss, but a decent human being, as he caught a flash of a smile on Kate’s face, Gibbs gave himself permission to relax and even smiled a small smile, himself, as he stepped out into the night and found the temperature to be near perfect and nowhere near as oppressively hot as it had been just a few hours ago.

“The bugs are all gone.” Kate sighed, pushing a few strands of her dark hair out of her face. “Thank God.”

In full agreement with his sole female agent, as there were few things in life that he loathed more than mosquitoes, excluding cold coffee and traffic-jams, Gibbs nodded his assent towards her and, as a result, didn’t even notice the occupants crowding their rented van until he opened the door and caught a glimpse of them from the corner of his eye.

“What the hell – “ Gibbs exclaimed, understandably startled that his Marine senses hadn’t picked up on anything.

Looking more than just a little sheepish as he reluctantly sat up in his seat, Tim grimaced dolefully and looked at him with a very apologetic expression on his still-green face.

“They made us all leave when I threw up in the theatre.” Tim blushed, thankfully abstaining from sharing whatever scene it was in the movie that had caused him such discomfort.

“Plus, we sort of thought that Kate might want to go home once she calmed down.” Tony suggested, opening his passenger side door to yank said best friend into a hug.

 Opting not to scold Tony for such uncalled-for roughness upon sensing that Kate didn’t have any problem with such an unorthodox handling herself, apart from a slight protesting squeak as her hair caught in the seatbelt holder, Gibbs simply rolled his eyes at such childish antics before turning to look at Tim.

“You good?” He investigated.

“Yeah.” Tim hastily assured. “The movie was just…gross. That’s all.”

By that point in time genuinely curious as to just what had occurred in the film that could be considered any grosser than what he, himself, had saw before leaving the theatre, yet far too prudent to make any inquiries into the matter, Gibbs vanquished the thought from his head and instead distracted himself by ordering his agents to plant their asses in their seats and buckle up.

“Can we all agree that Tony doesn’t get to pick the movie the next time we all go out to the theatre?” Jimmy pipped up, meticulously readjusting his seatbelt so that his skinny ass didn’t go flying if they were rear-ended.

“That’s fair.” Tony charitably agreed. “Next time _Ducky_ can pick. Because the worst thing that can happen _then_ is that we get bored.”

Making no move at all to defend his teasing child as Ducky slipped off his loafer and launched in towards Tony, not even when said obstacle made contact with said man’s ear, Gibbs simply sighed loudly enough for all to hear before bringing the engine to life with a turn of the key and maneuvering himself out of the tight parking lot.

“Don’t think I won’t come back there, Anthony.” Ducky forewarned. “If I can manage to maneuver a van this large into a space this small, I can certainly make my way over to you.”

“ _You_ were the one who went back and got the van?” Gibbs interrogated, equal parts as surprised as he was eager to draw his friend’s ire away from his kid.

 “I was.” Ducky confirmed. “Why does that surprise you so much?”

Thinking that it would be far from prudent to make some commentary about driving skills, or the lack thereof, when he was in such close proximity to his friend, Gibbs simply shrugged and effectively changed the subject by asking the Medical Examiner just how it was that they had all managed to leave the facility without him noticing. Because while he was not surprised at all that the car had, indeed been fetched, given that he had texted Ducky to do just that as Kate bawled over his shoulder, he _was_ somewhat put out that they had been discreet enough to escape his notice.

“The same way you get your boats out of your basement.” Ducky retorted, still clearly annoyed that Tony was the only one blessed with such elusive knowledge.

“But Gibbs doesn’t have a fire door.” Tim commentated, clearly and adorably out of the loop.

“Oh Timmy,” Tony dramatically sighed, “You sweet summer child.”


	13. Chapter 13

Understandably having wanted to do nothing more than to comfort and cheer up his best friend, Kate, after having inarguably been the cause of her earlier distress, and apparently knowing other way in which to do so apart from a game, as they were both ridiculously competitive and achievement-oriented, Tim was not at all surprised when Tony took leave of their room only to return moments later with two pilfered jars of ground cinnamon and a challenge for his usual competitor. Although, that was not to say that he wasn’t legitimately _concerned_ about the nature of said competition and what it entailed, as it was only in his nature to worry and fuss about those he cared deeply for. But, rather than run the risk of being chastised for asking the two relentless competitors if they were absolutely sure they wanted to go through with what they planned for the eleventh time in as many minutes, Tim kept mum and concentrated on the checker board before him, hoping against hope that the two of them would come to their senses on their own accord so that he would not be forced into fetching Gibbs and subsequently putting an end to such shenanigans.

“It’s easy, Kate.” Tony excitedly asserted, brandishing both containers of cinnamon in her face. “All you have to do to win is keep it in your mouth longer than I do.”

Thinking that there could never be any true winners in a game that involved purposely choking oneself with a commonly-used spice, yet nowhere near as priggish to voice such a Ducky-like opinion, Tim frowned deeply and rolled his eyes before jumping over five of Jimmy’s game-pieces and moving one step closer to obtaining victory. But rather than take such a sound shaming to heart, and accuse him of cheating as Tony might have, Jimmy simply shrugged off his imminent defeat before nailing the remaining male in the room with one hell of a razz.

“You _clearly_ have the advantage there.” Jimmy quipped, clearly believing himself to be safe from any significant retaliation given that his father was just a room away.

Thankful that such a fact seemed to be exactly the case, as he didn’t much wish to incur the wrath of Gibbs by being present during one of Tony’s and Jimmy’s infamous wrestling matches without managing to successfully break it up, Tim sighed softly in relief and allowed himself to hope, for the first time since he had arrived at the hotel, that he could go a full week without getting yelled at or scolded by anyone. Because even though Gibbs had managed to refrain from physically striking anyone for an impressive amount of times, to the point were Vance had been legitimately concerned he had suffered a personality-altering stroke, Tim still didn’t much care for being chewed out either – even _if_ said chewing outs were far milder than was usual.

“How many gay jokes am I going to have to deal with today?” Tony theatrically demanded, not the least bit offended.

“Not as many as you might have now that Abby is gone.” Jimmy philosophically opined, sacrificing yet another one of his checkers into Tim’s approaching clutches. “But still a fair deal given that _I’m_ still here.”

Seeming, for once, to have no clever retort with which to adequately retaliate with, Tony simply resorted to giving his diabetic antagonizer a frighteningly Gibbs-like glare before turning back to tend to the very important business of pouring out equal measures of cinnamon into two of the matching tablespoons he had likewise ‘borrowed’ from the unguarded restaurant kitchen.

“Okay,” Tony clapped, once the deed was done and the cinnamon distributed, “Grab a spoon, Kate.”

Despite frowning deeply enough at the measured-out spice to provoke a flickering amount of hope within his person that _she_ would be the one to call for a premature end to such an ill-fated endeavor, Kate promptly crushed all his hopes as she accepted one of the overflowing spoons and brought it gingerly up to her face to avoid spilling unto the pristine whiteness of the carpet below her feet.

“Are you two _sure_ you should be doing this?” Tim blurted, unable to keep from issuing forth one last cautionary statement.

“What’s the worst that could happen.” Tony ignorantly scoffed. “It’s _cinnamon_ , not methamphetamine.”

            Charitably opting to forgive Tony for his rudeness on the grounds that it was only his fierce and unyielding competitive side that provoked him into acting so wild, Tim held back a snappier response and relied, instead, on logic to win the debate at hand.

            “Because the carpets are white and your lungs are shit.”

             In no circumstances ever liking to have the weakened state of his lungs called into focus, as it aggravated him greatly to now have to be extra careful around aerosols and smoke, Tony scowled deeply and subconsciously brought his free hand up to touch his neck.

            “It’ll be fine.” Tony stubbornly persisted, refusing to believe himself in possession of any distinguishable weakness. “I’m not swallowing it.”

            “Maybe that’s why you’re still single.” Jimmy teased, moving one of his black checkers into the perfect position to be captured.

            Trying not to be unforgivably rude by gagging in response to the crude imagery that such commentary had put into his brain, as homophobic was one of the very last things he was, Tim politely focused his gaze unto the checkerboard and kindly pretended to debate the matter of where to move one of his pieces before jumping over Jimmy’s penultimate piece and moving themselves one step closer to finishing the game.

            “I swear to God, Jimmy, you’re about ten seconds away from being shoved out the goddamn window.” Tony forewarned, not at all as vehemently as he might have had he been genuinely bereaved by his friend’s commentary.

            “Not with Ducky in the other room, I’m not.” Jimmy easily dismissed, moving his last game piece one step closer to mortal peril.

            “Just you wait until tonight, Gremlin.” Tony heatlessly threatened.

            “Bring it on, Guido.” Jimmy calmly retorted.

            Apparently having heard all she cared to of such pointless arguing, given that it was greatly interfering with her winning of a challenge, Kate impatiently pinched Tony’s shoulder and glared over at Jimmy with an expression that promised similar retribution if he persisted in running his mouth.

            “Would you two shut up already?” Kate groused. “I have a game to win.”

              “I really don’t think this is a good – “

            “Right then!” Tony interrupted, completely ignoring the start of Tim’s warning just as his female counterpart had. “On three! One…Two… _Three_!”

            And, just like that, all of Tim’s repeated cautions and remonstrations went to pot as both Kate and Tony shoveled the brown spice into their mouths without any hesitation – either utterly ignorant as to the real danger they had placed themselves in or elsewise far too caught up in the thrill of a challenge to pay such important considerations any real mind.

            “Don’t come crying to me when you start crying cinnamon.” Tim grumbled, jumping over Jimmy’s last checker piece far more aggressively than was strictly necessary.

            Feeling somewhat vindicated as he watched a steady flood of tears start streaming down their mutually-reddened cheeks, to accompany the disgusting drips of snot that began to race out of their noses, Tim gave the both of them a very pointed look before leaving them to their suffering as he made to meticulous repackage the heirloom game of checkers Ducky had been kind enough to let them borrow for a few hours.

            “Good God,” Jimmy softly exclaimed, making no move at all to assist Tim, “I’m starting to think that they’re both willing to die for the win.”

            Having once had the dubious pleasure of witnessing _both_ Tony and Kate down an entire bottle of tequila in under fifteen seconds, in order to prove to a couple of college-aged kids that they could, indeed, still outdrink their youthful asses, Tim harbored no delusions, whatsoever, that both of his fellow agents would fight to the bitter end to be declared champion of the cinnamon challenge. And, not at all inclined to ruin their ‘fun’ with any more useless sermonizing, as they would very clearly learn their lesson the natural way after they spent the next few hours spitting up cinnamon into the toilet, Tim simply placed the last of the game pieces in their wooden box and studiously avoided making eye-contact with his stubborn friends by dint of not wanting to encourage them.

            It wasn’t until he heard a desperate expelling of pent-up breath, followed quickly by another of the exact same kind, that Tim finally forced himself to look on nothing more than the grounds that he wished to assess the damage done to both carpet and challengers by the nefarious cinnamon.

            To say that he was absolutely flooded with concern the very moment his keen eyes brushed against the now distinctly-stained carpet would have been an understand. But to say that he was downright panicked upon discovering Tony stooped over and fighting for breath would have been an even _more_ egregious understatement. For practically purple and bug-eyed to boot, Tony clawed frantically at his throat and fought to expel the spice now coating his damaged lungs even as Kate tried, and failed, to push a glass of milk into his preoccupied hands.

            “Uh-oh.” Jimmy eloquently exclaimed, blue eyes gone wide as he remained rooted to the spot. “He can’t breathe.”

            Only narrowly managing to restrain himself from snapping at the unhelpful Medical Examiner that, ‘ _No, of course he couldn’t fucking breathe,’_ Tim quickly collected himself and all but dove off the bed he had been sharing with Jimmy in his haste to reach the door that lead into Gibbs’s and Ducky’s room. Because even though he knew that by doing so he was putting all their asses in the proverbial line of fire, he wasn’t just going to stand by as his friend choked to death on a common household spice – even _if_ said moron had been warned profusely beforehand that such a challenge was an exceedingly stupid one, indeed.

            “Tony can’t breathe!” Tim frantically exclaimed, bursting through the door without any ceremony at all.

            Immensely thankful that the both of them were too well-trained to react in crises to respond to his frantic plea for help with anything other than action, Tim quickly stepped aside to avoid getting run down by the two older men as they hurried into the adjoining room to tend to a now eerily-silent Tony.

            “God in Heaven!” Ducky exclaimed, lowering Tony down onto the floor with a copious amount of aid from Gibbs. “What has happened here!?”

            Knowing perfectly well that he would only get himself into more hot water if he stalled, and far too morally upstanding to lie to straight to anyone’s face, Tim obediently barked out an answer as quickly, and succinctly, as he could.

            “He’s choking on cinnamon.” Tim rapidly explained, leading with the most important information. “He and Kate decided to do some stupid challenge.”

            “Oh, for _God’s sake_!” Ducky snapped, clearly unamused with the decisions that had been made that night. “What the hell if _wrong_ with you children?!”

            Unable to keep from cringing upon hearing such a blatant condemnation leveled his way, as _he_ had been the one to try and talk his fellow agents out of it in the first place, Tim frowned and tried, and promptly failed, to put the thoughts of his angry father barking the same question at him out of his mind.

            “Is he going to be okay?” Jimmy fussed, looking very near to panicking.

            “He had damn well better be!” Gibbs snapped, at no one in particular, as he held an undersized garbage can under Tony’s mouth in the hopes that he might soon expel the spice currently irritating his lungs.

            Having never before hoped so ardently that somebody would vomit in front of him, as he had quite the squeamish sensibilities when not faced with the prospect of one of his friends aspirating to death, Tim struggled to think of what he ought to do next, for several unbearably long seconds, before finally deciding to make himself useful by holding back Kate’s loose hair as she vomited profusely into the kitchenette sink.

            “Pry his mouth open, Jethro.” Tim heard Ducky direct, his tone stern yet calm. “I’m going to induce vomiting.”

            Fighting hard not to gag as the sounds of profuse vomiting quickly followed whatever it was that Ducky had done to Tony, Tim clamped down hard on his tongue with his teeth only to very nearly cry out from sheer joy when, moments later, Tony took one of his first breaths since choking.

            “There we go.” Tim heard Gibbs crooning. “Get it all out.”

            Gradually feeling himself relax, at least to a certain degree, as the sounds of Tony’s vomiting gradually turned into the sounds of somewhat steadier breathing, Tim allowed his shoulders to slump even as he retained hold of Kate’s long hair while she spat the leftover remnants of cinnamon into the puddle of her fragrant vomit.

            “I want to know whose idea this was.” Gibbs growled, now seated on the floor and cradling Tony’s sweating head to his chest.

            Feeling more than just a little guilty as he took note of the sheer parental panic still making itself known on his boss’s face, and the outright exhaustion now assaulting his friend as he lay limp in his father’s arms, Tim fidgeted guiltily and felt all the more under scrutiny as Kate gently extracted her hair from his grasp and went about unclogging the sink of her vomit.

            “M – M – _Me_.” Tony rasped, charitably coming to his aid even though it was very clear in pained him to speak.

            “Tony,” Gibbs sighed, wearily closing his eyes, “What the _hell_ were you thinking? You could have _died_.”

            Becoming more than just a little uncomfortable as he watched Tony’s expressive green eyes flood over with guilty tears, Tim hastily looked away from the familial scene being played out before him and sought to distract himself by grabbing a rag from the kitchen, wetting it, and stooping down to _try_ and minimize the damage that had been done to the carpet.

            “I’m afraid your efforts are going to prove quite fruitless, my boy.” Ducky advised, finally back to his unflappable self. “I suggest you busy yourself with tending to Kate, instead.”

            More than just a little amendable to such an idea, as Kate was very likely still in want of some assistant despite having been nowhere near in as much danger as Tony, Tim obediently nodded and resolved to fetch for her a pair of extra pajama bottoms from her room given that she had coughed so hard her bladder had let go. But, before he made any moves at all to do so, he had to ascertain that Tony was absolutely okay and safe and no longer in any real danger of dying on him.

            "Is Tony going to be okay?"

            "Don’t worry.” Gibbs encouraged, no longing barking but speaking softly as he gently hefted Tony up into his arms. “I’ll be keeping an eye on this one tonight.”


	14. Chapter 14

            While it was not often, if at all, that Gibbs felt the keen and distinctive need to be actively paternal towards his small passel of agents, save for Tony, of course, he had found, upon waking, that he couldn’t quite help but slip into a more paternal mindset as he rose from his bed and began to go about the arduous and thankless process of rousing said young adults for the day. Because not only did he still feel keenly guilty about being so brusque and irritable when sending them off to bed early the previous evening as a means of imposing a non-physical penance, once the mess of cinnamon had been cleared up and the unfortunate challengers checked over by Ducky one last time, so too had he been rather harsh when shutting down their timid, but persistent, arguments that eleven-thirty was far too unreasonable an hour for grown adults to be sent off to bed.

            And, given just such a reflection, Gibbs sought to make his own amends by treating his disgruntled young employees to a pleasant breakfast at a nearby café, hoping to secure their forgiveness, or at least lessen their hostility, with the aid of a meal spent _away_ from the snooty restaurant attached to the stuffy hotel. Because even though he didn’t actually _feel_ as if he had done anything too wrong in disciplining them, especially not after they had participated and/or watched such stupidity unfold, he had realized, gradually, after a long night of sleep, that he potentially could have refrained from using verbally abusive terms while doing so, _and_ still managed to get his point across well enough. For even though he had refrained from yelling, a little factoid he was still markedly surprised by, he had not failed to notice the outright fear that had crept into Tim’s eyes after he had made the generalized, and uncalled for, statement that everyone in the room ought to have their workplace competency reexamined.

            _‘Hopefully a good meal and some time spent away from the hotel will smooth things over.’_ Gibbs thought to himself, still feeling distinctly guilty as he recalled the horrified expression splayed out across McGee’s face.

            But, rather than dwell on the discomforting possibility that his plan might not, in fact, work as well as he hoped it might, Gibbs forced himself to be positive as he made his way over to the bed he had just shared with Tony with the full intentions of rousing him from his slumber before moving on to work on getting the other two out of their respective beds.

            _“Tony,”_ Gibbs whispered, gently shaking the younger man’s shoulder, “ _It’s time to get up.”_

            Grumbling incoherently beneath his breath in full protest of the sudden pressure being exerted against his exposed shoulder, even though such a touch was as light as it was harmless, Tony squeezed his eyes even tighter together before flopping gracelessly unto his stomach in a futile attempt to evade being roused when he had no other wish but to remain asleep at so ungodly an hour as eight in the morning. Only as soon as his belly made contact with the impossibly soft mattress they had spent the night together on, alongside his crotch, Tony changed his tune almost immediately. For not only did he go from sleepily disoriented to genuinely disgruntled, so too did he evolve from being dead-asleep to wide awake in the space of seconds.

            “Dad,” Tony groaned, a very vivid flush creeping up his neck and unto his face, “I’m _soaked_.”

            “Yeah, I can see that.” Gibbs good-naturedly confirmed, glancing discreetly at the very bright wetness indicator gracing his child’s bedtime diaper. “Do you want to take care of it yourself? Or do you want me to do it?”

            Opting to make his wished known via a nonverbal reply, as he was clearly far too tired to be bothered with using any more words than he absolutely had to, Tony simply yawned loudly before kicking both blankets and sheets off his bare legs, such a nonchalant gesture a very clear indication, indeed, that Gibbs was more than just a little welcome to tend to the wet diaper if he was so particularly inclined.

            “You’re so spoiled.” Gibbs heatlessly accused, fetching the required Disney-themed changing mat from Tony’s diaper bag.

            Rubbing quite blearily at his eyes with two closed fists, and with his Batman sleeping shirt practically bunched up all the way to his torso, Tony was practically the height of adorableness as he arched his hips and allowed the brightly-colored changing mat to be slipped beneath his bottom.

            “Not spoiled.” Tony corrected with a yawn. “Just sleepy.”  

            “And wetter than a lake.” Gibbs teased, expertly undoing the tabs of the saturated diaper with just two, synchronous, pulls.  

            Somewhat surprised to realize that his harmless observation had hurt his son’s feelings, as said child had not only frowned deeply in response to the quip but had likewise quickly pulled a pillow over his now flushed face, Gibbs felt the corners of his own lips turn down as he paused, for but a moment, to consider what the issue might be.

            “I didn’t do it on purpose.” Tony huffed, entirely indignant.

             Coming to the rapid conclusion that his child was just simply grumpy with the whole entire situation, itself, rather than with _him_ personally, Gibbs allowed himself to relax a fraction even as he concentrated the majority of his attention unto finding the words that might make his kid feel better about having woken up wet.

            “I know you didn’t, Kiddo.” Gibbs immediately placated, gently peeling away the soaked garment from his child’s skin. “I was just teasing is all. I didn’t mean to make you feel badly.”      

            Huffing loudly to confirm that he still did not, in fact, enjoy having his incontinence issues poked fun at moments upon waking, even _if_ the intent had been pure in nature, Tony mumbled something distinctly unintelligible into his face-concealing pillow before impulsively removing the white rectangle from his face long enough to grace his father with a much clearer answer.

            “I’m supposed to be potty-trained by now.” Tony pouted, wincing slightly as Gibbs delicately attacked his bottom with baby wipes.

            “Tony,” Gibbs gingerly rebuked, “The doctors only said it was a _possibility_ , not a guarantee, that you’d be out of diapers by summer. So stop being so hard on yourself. You’ll get the knack of it, eventually. You just need to be patient.”

            And even though the words he spoke did, indeed, seem more than just a little cliché, Gibbs meant every last word of them. For if there was _anything_ that Gibbs had learned from his years of parenting a stubborn and impatient toddler, it was that potty-training would occur only when the _bladder_ proved itself ready, and not a moment sooner. The will of the bladder owner be damned.  

            “I just don’t like waking up wet all the time.” Tony groused. “That’s all.”

            “I know.” Gibb commiserated, gently dabbing a little diaper rash cream unto his son’s slightly-pink bottom. “But we’ll get there soon, I promise.”  

            Nodding to show that he was, at the very least, actively listening to his father, if not outright taking his sermonizing as Gospel, Tony yawned loudly once more and didn’t even so much as protest when Gibbs slipped yet another nighttime diaper under his butt before sealing him up in it with only a sprinkle of powder in between – no doubt believing, quite mistakenly, that he would be permitted to go right back to sleep.  

             “Oh no,” Gibbs chuckled, swatting his hand away from the blankets, “It’s time to get up.”

            “But we don’t have to be to work.” Tony whined, rolling unto his belly once more to bury his face in the light-blocking pillows.

            “But we do have plans.” Gibbs corrected, landing a swat on his cushioned rear. “So get your ass out of that bed.”  

            By that point in time more than just a little familiar enough with Gibbs to realize that he would not be getting his way anytime soon, no matter how valiant an attempt he might put in, Tony muttered something distinctly vulgar into the pillows obscuring his face before reluctantly rolling off the bed and setting off in pursuit of a pair of jeans that would work to cover his considerably-cushioned ass well enough to be inconspicuous to the eyes of most.

             “Where are we going anyways?” Tony questioned, expertly working to wriggle himself into a looser pair of jeans.

            “We’re all going out to eat.” Gibbs answered, tossing the younger man his Marine sweater, with the full knowledge that he was apt to just simply steal if not outright offered the privilege of wearing it.

            “Even Jimmy?” Tony inquired, understandably sounding more than just a little doubtful.

            Not at all surprised to hear the doubt in his son’s voice, given that the aforementioned man had just spent the majority of the night toughing out a sudden blood-sugar low with the aid of his father, Gibbs shook his head and kneeled down to tie his loose shoelaces.

            “I think he might want to stay in with Ducky this morning.” Gibbs ventured, feeling quite sympathetic towards the diabetic young man who lie pale and shivering in his father’s embrace.

            “Is he going to be alright?” Tony worried, stealing a pair of Gibbs’s socks for his own use.

            Thankfully opting to speak up on the matter himself, as he was far more an authority on the subject than was Gibbs, Ducky slowly brought his forehead away from Jimmy’s sweatier version and soothed them both with the deliverance of a calm diagnosis.

            “He just needs a little time is all.” Ducky swiftly assured, running a comforting hand up and down Jimmy’s back. “You two go right on ahead.”

            Shoulders sagging in very clear relief of the fact that one of his closest friends was not in any real danger, save for a very sound ear-boxing once he was well enough again to be scolded for his lack of responsible eating habits, Tony slipped into a pair of sneakers and smiled softly as his uncomfortable partner-in-crime.

            “Feel better, Jimmy.” He encouraged, making clumsy work of knotting his laces together.

            Adding his own well-wishes to that of his son’s, as well as extracting from his own best friend the promise to call should the need arise, Gibbs left the three men to tend to their own business as he made his way across the room and rapped sharply, twice, on the door leading into the boys’ room before stepping in.

            “Tim,” Gibbs frowned, surprised to find the young man awake and playing a Gameboy in bed, “Why didn’t you let us know you were up?”

            Because while he wasn’t altogether outright _shocked_ that Tim would be the first of his agents to awaken and go about getting ready for the day, he _was_ a bit surprised that the young technology-enthusiast hadn’t made his way into the bedroom Gibbs shared with Ducky, as, for whatever reason, such a space had quickly become the designated meeting-place in which they all gathered to go over the day’s plans.

            “I thought you might still be mad…” Tim hesitantly confessed, reluctantly lowering his Gameboy to look him in the eye.

            “Tim.” Gibbs sighed, only narrowly refraining from rolling his eyes. “I was _never_ mad, just – fine I _was_ mad.” He impatiently confessed, having not failed to catch a glimpse of his agent’s dubious expression. “But only for ten minutes, is all.”

            And, quite frankly, Gibbs thought that was a considerable achievement given just how much of the proverbial papa-bear he became whenever Tony’s life was in danger.

            “You haven’t yelled at us like that for a while.” Tim quite timidly reminded.  

             Unable to refute such a sound accusation, as he outright couldn’t even remember the last time he had chewed out one of his agents, or _anyone_ for that matter, Gibbs felt a frustrated frown beginning to creep up unto his face before he quickly schooled his expression into a more palatable and neutral version to avoid worrying his perpetually-anxious agent.

            “I know.” Gibbs confessed, going for broke. “I just…I was worried about Tony. That’s all.”

            “I know.” Tim confidently assured. “But I _tried_ to stop them.”

            Realizing right then and there that Tim was mistakenly blaming himself for the unfortunate coughing fits of last night, despite having only played a negligible part in them, at worst, Gibbs choked down a frustrated sigh and wondered, not for the first time, just how long it would take him to train the meekness and unyielding selflessness out of his agent. Because even though those traits didn’t hamper his ability as an agent, as McGee _could_ be quite assertive when the situation called for it, Gibbs _still_ didn’t like how those characteristics tended to effect his employee outside of the work field, as Tim tended to work himself down to the bone to avoid causing even the slightest irritation or upset in anyone else.

            “Tim, I’m not angry anymore.” Gibbs promised, trying to affect as much sincerity as he could manage. “But I wish you weren’t so goddamned frightened of me, regardless.”

             Chubby face going bright red in response to being so bluntly called out, Tim’s posture went uncomfortably stiff as a soft note of panic began to creep into his eyes.

            “I’m sorr – “

            “Don’t be sorry.” Gibbs interrupted, firm yet kind. “Just be ready to leave in fifteen minutes.”

            Already fully dressed for the day, apart from his shoes, some of the raw fear began to leave Tim’s eyes as he remained firmly abed with Gameboy in hand.

            “Where are we going?”

            “Out for breakfast.” Gibbs confirmed, moving over to the empty bed Tony shared with Jimmy in order to rectify the unmade mess. “There’s a nice little café nearby.”

            And, even though Gibbs had not so much as stepped foot inside, the Yelp reviews he had spent half an hour locating assured him that both food and atmosphere would be enough to get rid of the foul taste the upscale restaurant attached to the hotel had afflicted upon them for the last two days or so.

            “Nice.” Tim responded, his smile small but genuine. “I’ll be ready to go just as soon as I finish this battle.”

            “What sort of battle are you playing at?” Gibbs inquired, curious as to whether or not it was a skirmish from one of the major world wars.

            Looking more than just a little hesitant to answer the question, in a timid manner that worried Gibbs to no end, Tim quickly averted his eyes and all but mumbled his reply as Gibbs made short work of getting his child’s bed back into order.

            “…A Squirtle against a Charmander.”  

             Having no idea, whatsoever, about what _either_ one of those things could be, yet far too proud to give any more credence to the fact that he was, indeed, getting older, Gibbs concentrated harder than was necessary on making sure his son’s pillows were perfectly adjacent to each other before finally feeling confident enough to speak without giving away any of his inward embarrassment.

            “Good luck with that.”

            “Thanks.” Tim smiled, never once drawing his eyes away from the screen.

            Full-heartedly resolving to ask Tony later, in private, just what the fuck a Charmander was, at the earliest opportunity possible, Gibbs took his leave of the room feeling quite old and made his way back into his own quarters with far less energy than his usual wont before idly crossing the carpet, once more, to rap at Kate’s door, thrice, before barging in.

            “Kate?” Gibbs called out, poking his head into the room. “Are you up?”

            Becoming somewhat annoyed when the young woman failed to answer, as she was very clearly awake judging by the way she was sitting upright in her bed, Gibbs scowled and pushed his way even further into the room – never one to enjoy being ignored, especially so by petulant individuals acting out after being deservedly chastised.

            “Kate!” Gibbs growled. “I asked you a question!”

            Still refusing to answer, let alone acknowledge him, Kate didn’t so much as adjust her rigid posture as she refrained from looking at him in full favor of staring at the wall to the left of her bed.

            “Todd!” Gibbs barked, making full use of his drill-sergeant voice.

            Jerking spastically in an eerie response to her last name being barked out with no semblance at all of patience, Kate blinked impossibly slowly four times before turning her head to look at him with alarmingly glassy eyes.

            “I can’t leave yet.” She argued, her voice strangely catatonic.

            Finally sensing that something was not quite right with his sole female agent, admittedly a bit belatedly, Gibbs felt himself frown as he slowly, and very reluctantly, made his way over to Kate’s bedside.

            “What are you talking about, Kate?” Gibbs investigated, feeling suddenly chilled.

            Still strangely glassy-eyed and rigid, Kate blinked languidly once more before slowly turning her head to stare at the closet she had barricaded with Abby’s bed.

            “She won’t let me leave.” Kate whispered, a slight tremor to her voice.

            “ _What the fuck?”_

            Nearly jumping out of his skin as Tony made his sudden presence in the room known by whispering into his ear without warning, Gibbs inhaled sharply and very nearly slapped his kid upside the head before recollecting himself by counting to ten.

            “Ducky _said_ she sleepwalks.” Tim reminded them all, looking more than just a little shaken at Kate’s antics.

             “Ducky said she _sleepwalks_.” Tony corrected. “Not… _this_.”

            Wishing to prevent a squabble about semantics before one could begin, as he wasn’t willing at all to begin the day with two crabby agents, Gibbs hushed them both with a glare and a warning raise of his eyebrow.

             “C’mon, Kate.” Gibbs encouraged, hoping to gently nudge her out of her half-asleep state. “It’s time to get up. We have places to be.”

            Furrowing up her well-manicured brows in response to such a very reasonable suggestion, Kate shook her head impossibly slowly before pointing towards the closet.

             “She won’t let me leave the dark.”

            “Well, I say you _can_ leave.” Gibbs growled, oddly chilled to the core. “So…C’mon, get up.”

            Terrified expression suddenly coming across her youthful features, Kate shivered violently before moving her head to face the suspiciously repainted section of wall that sat beside her bed.

            “They all died in here.”

            Wondering, briefly, if hotels were able to conceal the fact that someone had been murdered in one of their rooms, unlike those who sold homes, Gibbs grimaced and reluctantly placed a hand on Kate’s shoulder before shaking her violently enough to snap her out of whatever psychosis she was in.  

            “Kate?” Gibbs asked, snapping his fingers in her face. “Are you awake now?”        

            Full-fledged terror still showing clear on her face, Kate nodded rapidly and all but launched herself of the bed, taking very clear care to avoid even glancing at the wall or the closet.

            “Get dressed.” Gibbs encouraged, feeling a bit disquieted himself. “We’re going out to eat.”  

            Not at all surprised when Kate simply opted to scoop yesterdays outfit off the floor before fleeing into Gibbs’s room to use _his_ bathroom to change, Gibbs allowed her unmade bed to go uncorrected as he ushered the two remaining agents out of the room with none-too-patient applications of pressure on their shoulders.

            “You good, Tim?” Gibbs asked, noting that Tim’s face still looked more than just a little clammy as they entered his room.

            “Gibbs,” Tim whispered, taking great care not to overhead by Kate, “I just googled this room.”

            “…And?”

            “Some woman stabbed her husband and stepchildren to death in this room before hanging herself in the closet.”

            “Jesus Christ.” Gibbs grumbled, markedly unnerved despite not believing in either ghosts or demons. “Don’t…Don’t tell Kate about this or she’ll never sleep in this room again.”


	15. Chapter 15

            Although she was not at all ignorant of the fact that she tended to sleeptalk up a storm whilst lying in the throes of sleep during the deepest parts of the night, her experience in sharing a bedroom with an older sister and an insomniac dormmate having confirmed such a fact for her, she _had_ , admittedly, forgotten just how creepy some of things she tended to say truly were, as it had been more than just a few weeks since she had frightened one of paramours, or gentleman callers, out of her apartment with her nocturnal utterances.

            “I don’t know why you guys are being so weird about this.” Kate pouted, speaking up from the backseat position she was currently sharing with Tim. “I just got stuck behind another red door is all. It’s no big deal.”

            Because even _if_ getting stuck behind said door meant that she had been forced to contend with what seemed like several hours of awkward, and terrifying, interaction with the angry woman who had an extension cord wrapped about neck, her misadventures in The Big Dark didn’t affect them in any real shape or form.

            “A door?” Gibbs frowned, still seeming oddly perturbed despite being downright nearly unshakable.

            “Yeah. A red one.” Kate confirmed, feeling very self-conscious. “Those ones are harder to get back out of.”

            Said doors leading, of course, into rooms solely inhabited by insidious dream monsters that liked to terrorize any unfortunate intruders – whether or not their arrival was by design or merely by accident.

            “What the fuck are you talking about?” Tony demanded, peering around the front seat to stare at her with wide eyes.

            Feeling more than just a little self-conscious at such a question, despite its levity, as her mother and father had _always_ made her feel quite terrible and odd for experiencing vivid dreams, and subsequently accused her of not being ‘right’ with the Lord because of it, Kate felt herself bristle and go on the defensive, even though she knew, perfectly well, that Tony was only being curious rather than reproving.

            “You know how sometimes when you dream, you go to the place with all the doors?” Kate snapped, feeling suddenly very targeted. “Well, I can go through them…if I want.”

            And, in most cases, she really _did_ want to go through them to visit her dream-concocted boarders, as they, most of them, were astonishingly kind and interesting to interact with, even _if_ most of them didn’t really talk or look at her. It was only when she found herself waking up inside the _red_ doors that she somewhat regretted having such bizarre sleeping experiences.

            “Kate…I don’t think anyone of us has ever dreamed something like that.” Gibbs neutrally asserted, clearly hoping to preserve the peace. “What do you mean when you say doors?”  

            Still greatly put out upon learning that, once again, she was still the only person in a room who could lay claim to such a remarkable and lucid dreaming ability, as it made her feel all the weirder and more singled out, Kate felt a faint glow beginning to rise on her cheeks.

            “You know, like the things you walk through.” She struggled to explain. “In The Big Dark.”

            “I see.” Gibbs carefully responded, his brow furrowed as he stared out at the road. “And so these red doors, Kate, are they the bad doors?”            

             Figuring it would do no good to try and put the conservation to an untimely end now that everyone seemed to invested in it, and seeing as it would be impossible to lie her way out of it after everyone had seen her in a trance the previous night, Kate nibbled at her lips for a bit to muster up her courage before responding.

            “I think so.” She admitted. “I mean, I’ve never been through a _good_ red door.”

            “And just what is it that’s through these doors?” Gibbs demanded, sounding as if he was fully prepared to square off with whatever/whoever had been antagonizing his agent.

            Thinking that it would be very interesting to see how just such a confrontation would go down, as she wasn’t at all sure as to what sort of rules governed The Big Dark, Kate smiled inwardly to herself, just a bit, before answering her employer’s question.

            “Rooms.” Kate confirmed. “Lots and lots of rooms, just like a big house. Only…I don’t think this one ends. It just keeps going and going.”

            And while she had no real idea as to whether or not her assumptions were true, having never before been able to fully explore The Big Dark as much as she might like to, she felt pretty confident in her assertion given the fact that she never wound up in the same room more than once – save for the one time a dream-dweller that looked suspiciously like her favorite Uncle kept pulling her back into a yellow one while she was still the hospital recovering from getting shot in the chest.

            “Do people live in these rooms?” Tim queried, clearly very curious.

            “Lots of people.” Kate confirmed. “And…things.”

            “ _Nice_ people and things?” Tim pressed.

            Hesitating, briefly, to answer the question, as it was already very clear to her that she had frightened the three men greatly the previous night with her antics, even though none of them would _admit_ to such a thing, Kate fiddled with a hangnail before making her reply.

             “Mostly.” She allowed. “Except when I go through the red doors.”

            Because behind the red doors, there were all sorts of ghastly people and monsters waiting to antagonize her with their incoherent ramblings and visages.

            “Why do you go through those doors if they’re so unpleasant?” Gibbs badgered. “Clearly you’re able to decide what to do in these dreams.”

            “I don’t do it on purpose!” Kate earnestly defended. “Sometimes I just wake up inside them on my own.”

            In fact, the only times she had ever _willingly_ gone through a red door had been when she was young and still trying to work out all the rules and governances of such a place.

            “And who was behind last night’s door, Kate?” Gibbs pressed.

            “A lady.” Kate reluctantly confessed. “She had an extension cord wrapped around her neck and was blocking the door. That’s why I couldn’t wake up right away.”

            “So when someone wakes you up, you just get…yanked out?” Tony interrogated.  

             “Kind of.” Kate frowned. “But if I’m still behind a door when I wake up, I usually end up back there again when I fall asleep.”

             In fact, the _first_ time she had gotten stuck behind a red door, it had taken her seven weeks to find a way back out of the creepy shed she had found herself locked in, as the man with missing eyes had her so terrified she was practically paralyzed to the point of being unable to move.

            “Is that lady going to be bothering you tonight then?” Gibbs worried.

            “Probably.” Kate frowned. “At least until I can find my way out of that damn door.”

            A feat that would be markedly hard to accomplish, given the way in which it appeared to be far too small for her to have any real hopes of squeezing through anytime soon.

            “Dad, we need to switch hotels.” Tony insisted. “I am _not_ sleeping anywhere near noose-lady.”

            “Tony,” Gibbs frowned, “We are not switching hotels just because…We’re not switching hotels.”  

            “Switching hotels wouldn’t help anyways.” Kate contributed. “Once a room gets added to The Big Dark, it’s there for good.”

            Whether she liked it or not.

            “Whelp,” Tony grimaced, “It’s official. I’m never sleeping again.”

            “It’s not all scary.” Kate hastily assured. “Most of the time it’s even fun - Except when I get stuck behind a door.”

            “Kate,” Gibbs frowned, “Do you want to sleep in our room tonight? I can have the front desk bring up a cot.”  

            “Yes please.”


	16. Chapter 16

Even though Gibbs had been pretty certain that there was absolutely nothing else that could have gone wrong during their stay, especially not after Abby had been exiled and Kate’s dreams lessened in intensity by moving her into his bedroom, with a cot to provide for her comfort, it had soon turned out, much to everyone’s chagrin, that their newfound relaxation and peace was brought to a swift and untimely end the penultimate night of their vacation, during which Tim seemed to suddenly, and inexplicably, come down with one hell of a stomach bug. And while Gibbs would, of course, never hold that against his young agent, or any of them, he had, admittedly, become somewhat annoyed when said agent had, initially, refused to accept any sort of comfort or assistance from anyone. It was only when the ill technology-enthusiast finally gave in and surrendered his sudden stubbornness, after his fifth round of vomiting into the toilet, that their standoff was dissolved well enough for him to ferret Tim into his bed and funnel a little Ducky-prescribed medication down his throat.   
“Are you feeling any better?” Gibbs hummed, rubbing the sweating man’s shoulder.   
“A little bit, thanks.” Tim mumbled.  
Beyond pleased that Tim was finally opening up to him, and beginning to trust in him, Gibbs allowed himself a smile as he gave the man a one-armed squeeze and wiped the sweat from his brow.   
“Just let me know if you feel like you have to throw up again.” Gibbs encouraged, swiping the damp hair from his brow.   
Nodding against his chest to show that he had both heard, and accepted, his advice, Tim rubbed blearily at his eyes and snuggled up even further into his side, almost perfectly mimicking the actions of Tony who also, like him, chose to occupy his remaining side. But while such actions served to make him uncomfortably hot, especially so now that Kate was lying at the foot of the bed and roasting his toes, Gibbs made no move to demand that they scoot over or get into their own beds for the evening.   
“Alright, you three, time for bed.” Gibbs directed, sensing that midnight had long since come and gone.   
“Can we watch just one more episode of The Lone Ranger?” Kate pleaded.   
“Just one more?” Tim added, clearly using his illness to his advantage.   
“Please.” Tony added, casting him rather large doe eyes.   
“Fine,” Gibbs grumbled, “One more episode.”


End file.
